A junkie ex-con was arrested yesterday after he confessed to savagely stabbing a Bronx grandmother over $80, police said.
Tyrone Ragland, 50, recently admitted he was high on crack when he started arguing with Ethal Parish, 70, over cash he claimed he was owed for odd jobs he had done inside her 15th floor apartment in the Murphy Houses, police said.
“He made statements that the woman that he [stabbed] owed him money,” NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. “He had been using crack and he [stabbed] her,” Kelly said.
Parish, who was a member of the building’s tenant patrol, met Ragland through his girlfriend who also lived in the building on Crotona Avenue near East 175th Street.
On Jan. 5, Parish’s son discovered his mother face down under a blanket in the kitchen with stab wounds to her face, back, abdomen and hands.
Ragland, who served 15 years in prison for manslaughter, was arrested on Tuesday after he confessed to the killing, Kelly said.
He was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.