Metro

Woman who fended off Central Park rapist kills beau in slay-suicide

A sexy former model who became a heroine when she fended off a would-be rapist in Central Park six years ago killed her boyfriend and herself in a bizarre murder-suicide in New Jersey, officials said yesterday.

Carina Schlesinger, 36, shot Daniel Cresci, 29, of Middletown, NJ, to death on the grounds of her dog-training school in Holmdel before setting the building ablaze and turning the gun on herself, officials said.

“She was mentally ill,” Cresci’s heartbroken dad, Victor, told The Post yesterday. “Daniel wanted to help her.”

Schlesinger became the face of fighting back against crime in 2004 after she and her German Shepherd mix named Cookie teamed up to repel would-be rapist Tito Rodriguez, who is serving 125 years in prison for the heinous attack.

The beautiful blonde recently had been distraught about a messy divorce from her husband.

Daniel, an attorney, had been dating the former New Yorker for about a year and wanted to stand by her side, despite his family’s warnings that she appeared unstable, his dad said.

“When you fall in love and then you recognize [the person is unstable], then you are at a crossroads,” Victor said.

Daniel was last heard from Sunday. After days without contact, his brother, Jonathan, and pal, Scott Broschart, went to Schlesinger’s home Wednesday to look for him.

They smelled gasoline when they arrived and looked through a window. In an instant, they saw the fire start and heard a gunshot.

“I noticed a candle in the front in the house kind of off in the distance,” said Broschart, 30. “We noticed the candle move and then we heard a loud bang and saw a big flash.”

“We just ran from the house. I contacted 911 and the house was quickly up in flames.”

Daniel’s dad said he was called to the home and watched in horror as it burned.

“A police officer comes to me and says, ‘Mr. Cresci, we’ve recovered two bodies’ and that’s when my life shattered,” he said.

“It was the first moment I had come to the realization that my son had been in that house for three days. It was the worst. He had the whole world.”

Monmouth County prosecutors believe Daniel may have been killed several days before the blaze was set. A source said the body of a dog was found in the fire.

In addition to the trouble over her divorce, Schlesinger had a run-in with the police, Victor said.

Officers visited her home last fall after Carina’s Danish parents, who are cops, called New Jersey to report that they feared she might harm herself. When officers got to the home, she signaled her dog to attack. She was arrested, and Daniel acted as her lawyer, Victor said.

Victor said Carina opened the New Jersey State Dog School to make ends meet after her marital breakup. The school trained protection dogs to perform crime-fighting feats that might help stop attacks similar to the one she suffered.

In an exclusive 2004 interview with The Post, Carina showed a tough attitude, saying she had “no fear” since the attack.

“If I ran into him again, I’d clock him first,” she said.

Additional reporting by Todd Venezia and Jeane MacIntosh

erin.calabrese@nypost.com