They went to question him on two cold-case murders — and found a third body still warm.
A Westchester County parolee is suspected of killing a woman yesterday, just hours before cops planned to question him in two 1993 slayings, law-enforcement sources said.
NYPD and local cops, as well as state parole officers, had gone to Lucius Crawford’s home in Mount Vernon at around 1:30 p.m. to ask him about the nearly 20-year-old slayings of a prostitute in Riverdale, in The Bronx in 1993 and another woman in Yonkers in 1994, the sources said.
Crawford, 60, has been in and out of prison since 1973, accused of stabbing nine women and pleading guilty to knifing six of them — including four during one particularly violent five-day spree.
No one answered his door when the officers knocked. When they peered in a window of the apartment, they saw a lifeless woman in a bed, police sources said.
The woman, stabbed eight times, had been seen alive earlier in the day, the sources said.
Crawford was taken into custody within a few hours and admitted to killing the woman, law-enforcement sources said.
He also confessed to the 1993 and 1994 killings, the sources said.
He will be arraigned today on most recent stabbing and is likely to be arraigned in the Bronx fo rthe 1993 slay within the next few days.
Crawford had most recently been paroled from Sing Sing in February 2008 after serving 13 years in prison for the attempted murder of a Yonkers woman.
His criminal record extends to at least 1973, when he was accused of stabbing five women in Charleston, SC, his hometown. He pleaded guilty in two of the cases, and was sentenced to six years.
But the serial stabber got out after just three years, and fewer than six months later, he went on another rampage.
He stabbed four women, ages 14 to 28, in five days, apparently after approaching them looking for affection. His lawyer at the time theorized that he couldn’t handle the rejection.
Crawford pleaded guilty in each case and landed another 24 years behind bars.
But he was again released early, and authorities are now eyeing him in the 1993 fatal stabbings in New York.
At his latest parole hearing, in 2006, he was asked about his problems with women. “We just can’t get along. Something always goes wrong,’’ he said. But, he added, “I wouldn’t say I hate women.’’
His request for parole was rejected.