Metro

Suspect ‘didn’t mean’ to stab man

The Army vet suspected of fatally stabbing a man outside the main post office left behind a chilling suicide note, saying he “didn’t mean to kill him” and just “wanted to stop the threat.”

READ THE FULL SUICIDE NOTE

Sirmone McCaulla, 28, an ex-GI suspected in the Sunday slaying along Eighth Avenue of 20-year-old Christopher Gutierrez, killed himself in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.

In a long and rambling suicide note posted on his MySpace page and obtained today by The Post, McCaulla confessed to the slaying and apologized to his baby daughter.

“I just got off the bus from New Jersey, and didn’t have a worry,” wrote McCaulla.

McCaulla said he and Gutierrez “bumped” into each other outside the James A. Farley Post Office.

“I turned around because we bumped into each other. He started talking like, ‘Watch where you’re going and we could fight,'” wrote McCaulla.

He went on to write that Gutierrez “took off his jacket” and wanted to fight.

“That’s when I started to get defensive,” wrote McCaulla. “I told the man, ‘Keep it moving, no problems.'”

Then, McCaulla admitted to the crime.

“Not gonna lie. Didn’t mean to kill him,” he said. “Just wanted to stop the threat.”

Surveillance cameras captured the bloody slaying and the moments before it, which Commissioner Ray Kelly described on Tuesday as a simple street altercation that turned deadly.

“[The killer] is walking north and the victim is walking south. It looks like they bump shoulders and they walk past each other, I would say 10 or 12 feet. They turn around and words are exchanged,” Kelly said.

“The victim takes his coat off as if they are going to have a fist fight and assumes a stance like a fighter.”

Gutierrez collapsed on the steps of the post office and was later declared dead.

Images from the video, coupled with published photographs taken by a German tourist, led several tipsters to call in, but the best clue came from the cop who recognized McCaulla from their time together in the Middle East.

Army officials were unable to provide detailed information on McCaulla’s service. In late 2008, he passed the FDNY exam and was on the waiting list. He worked as a FedEx deliveryman in The Bronx as recently as April, but was fired for allegedly stealing packages, according to court records. McCaulla had two other arrests, for robbery and assault.

McCaulla was reportedly found in a bathtub hugging a cable box and wearing a bag over his head.

McCaulla’s dying wish appeared to be for the cops to release the video “so people can see what really happen [sic].”

“If it’s hard for me to find work out of the army, it’s gonna be 10 times harder if I come out as a felon,” he added. “I hope this shows that the system is not built to fix a person.

“To those who supported me, I lived my life. No it’s time for me to go.”

Additional reporting by Murray Weiss