Man admits to killing elderly Queens woman known as ‘cat lady’

A man told cops he murdered a beloved 92-year-old Queens “cat lady” — because “he hated his mother,” law-enforcement sources told The Post on Friday.

Police picked up the 21-year-old suspect, identified by a top law-enforcement source as Reeaz Khan, on Thursday night and hauled him off to the 106th Precinct in Ozone Park, where he later admitted to the killing and was arrested, sources said. Charges were pending.

Khan was charged with murder in the second-degree and sexual abuse, cops said.

A source said the suspect claimed to police that he murdered victim Maria Fuertes because “his mother abused him – he hated his mother.” The suspect and Fuertes did not know each other, the source said; NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison told reporters that cops are still investigating.

The alleged killer’s own brother helped lead cops to him, sources said.

Fuertes, who sources say was strangled, was found mortally wounded and lying on the sidewalk at Liberty Avenue and 127th Street in Richmond Hill, just a block from her home, around midnight Monday.

Medics rushed the nonagenarian to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, but she could not be saved.

“Ms. Fuertes is a defenseless, 92-year-old woman, minding her own business, walking down the street when she was brutally attacked,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison told reporters Friday.

Khan followed Fuertes from Liberty Avenue onto 127th Street, where he came up behind her and attacked her, police said.

“There was some sort of physical contact between the two … causing both of them to fall to the ground. where they landed behind a parked car,” Deputy Chief of Detective Bureau Queens South Joseph Kenny said.

The attack was partially captured on surveillance footage, but Kenny said, “The perpetrator and the victim were out of view for approximately 4 to 5 minutes” before the assailant reappeared and ran northbound on 127th Street.

“The autopsy revealed that the victim had suffered multiple injuries demonstrating intentional harm,” said Kenny, who called Fuertes “a fixture in the neighborhood of Richmond Hill,” adding that she “took strolls in the evening quite often.” Sources say Fuertes was out in the late night hour picking up bottles from the street as part of her regular routine.

Harrison said that Fuertes suffered “contusions around the neck” and “some injuries around her private area.”

Investigators tracked the suspect to his home about a half mile from the scene of the crime using surveillance footage and tips from the community.

The suspect’s brother even called police after the NYPD released surveillance footage of a man wanted in the murder to say that his brother is the one shown in the video, according to sources.

Khan was previously arrested on a charge of assault on Nov. 26 for allegedly slicing his father with a broken ceramic mug inside his Queens home, police said.

The father suffered a laceration to his chest and arm and was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Khan was released on his own recognizance at his arraignment, where a temporary order of protection was issued, records show.

Neighbors of Fuertes said she was a lover of cats who often spent time walking around the area collecting cans and feeding felines.

“She was willing take any stray cat,” said neighbor Shantie Ram, 57. “Sometimes she would knock on my door and ask if we’ve seen any cats. She’s a very nice person.”

Ram noted that Fuertes “loved to walk in the nights” and that her son, who works at night, used to repeatedly tell her not to walk around at night.

“She would just go walk up and down the block collecting cans, feeding the cats — just so sad,” Ram said.

Jean Hiralal, 76, who lived next door to Fuertes for seven years, called Fuertes “a lovely lady” who “never bothered a soul.”

“Everybody would call her ‘mommy,’ ‘grandma’ or ‘cat lady,’” Hiralal said. “Just a wonderful soul.”

Additional reporting by Israel Salas-Rodriguez