Cops are looking for a man they’re calling “John Doe Duffle Bag” after he was spotted on video footage near two of the crime scenes tied to a suspected Brooklyn serial killer, law-enforcement sources told The Post today.
Police have one video that shows the well-dressed, balding, mustached man walking 1 ½ blocks away from Friday’s murder of Flatbush store before owner Rahmatollah Vahidipour and a second video minutes later that shows him two blocks away, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Another law-enforcement source told The Post that the man also is believed to appear on other footage, of poorer quality, around the time of the murder of shopkeeper Isaac Kadare on 86th Street in Bensonhurst on Aug. 2.
“Right now, we want to identify the guy known as John Doe Duffle Bag,” Browne said. “He’s in the proximity of the store within the window when the proprietor [Vahidipour] was killed.”
Law-enforcement sources called him “a person of interest.’’
The NYPD and FBI have combined forces in hopes of catching a potential serial killer.
Federal agents in New York began assisting the NYPD after ballistics tests showed that the same .22-caliber handgun was used in all three slayings, one law-enforcement official said yesterday. The first slaying occurred in early July.
FBI’s Behavioral Unit, which handles the investigation of serial killers and is based in Quantico, Va., is now involved in the probe.
“We’re asking anyone who was a customer in those stores Friday to come forward even if it was in the morning,” NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly said.
“John Doe Duffle Bag” wore a long overcoat and carried a duffel bag. He was seen in the vicinity of Vahidipour’s store just after 6 p.m. The shop owner’s body was found at 7:11 p.m.
Cops had earlier said they also wanted to speak with “Jane Doe Green Jacket” and “John Doe Bubble Jacket,” mysterious figures seen around Friday’s murder scene.
It turns out “Green Jacket” was a woman who had swiped a bottle of perfume from a street vendor and “Bubble Jacket” was the vendor chasing the thief on foot, Browne said.
Both have been interviewed and cleared of any involvement in the murder.
That still leaves officers also looking for a possible witness they’re called “Jane Doe Long Coat” — a woman wearing glasses and a neck scarf who also was in the area at around the same time.
The killer appears to do his homework. None of the businesses was heavily trafficked or had a video camera. Each murder was committed while the owner was closing by himself.
“In three stores the propreitor was there by himself,” said NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly. “There were no cameras. You would have to speculate that some sort of reconnaissance was carried out.”
Cops were still investigating whether the killer might have stalked his prey at least partly based on the addresses of the stores. All had the numberal 8 in them.
Vahidipour, a 78-year-old Iranian Jew, was shot three times and his midsection covered with clothes.
But it did not appear the killer was trying to hide the body — it was “sources said.“It wasalmost like it was done in disgust” of the victim said one law-enforcement source.
Police revisited relatives of the second victim, Isaac Kadare, 59, an Egyptian Jew, who was shot in the head and stabbed in the neck in his Bensonhurst shop Aug. 2.
“They said they don’t have any leads, but hopefully they’ll catch him,” said Kadare’s widow, Nancy Kadare, 49.
The first victim, Mohammed Gebeli, 65, an Egyptian Muslim, was fatally shot in the neck in his Bay Ridge store July 6.
Cops dug into the backgrounds of the first two victims after linking their murders through ballistics. They even contacted Interpol to check if either had given any money to terrorists, law-enforcement sources said. They hadn’t.
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes pledged his office’s maximum help today to find the killer or killers.
“It’s given the highest priority,” Hynes said. “There are certain things that would indicate it falls through the realm of serial killer.”
“The thing that’s troubling for all of us is that there doesn’t seem to be a necessary timeline. It’s random situation we face,” he added. “There is nothing about the victims that would suggest anything other than they were just the victims of a random execution.”
.Additional reporting by Josh Saul, Jamie Schram and Reuven Fenton