Cops suspect that the same madman who slaughtered a boy in a Brooklyn elevator also killed an 18-year-old woman — and the NYPD warned parents to keep a close eye on their children.
“We have deployed additional officers into that area for the children who walk to and from the various schools . . . and we will continue doing that going forward,” NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
“It would be advisable to be extra cautious.”
Prince Joshua Avitto, 6, was fatally stabbed in an elevator in East New York on Sunday by a lunatic who also knifed his 7-year-old friend, Mikayla Capers.
The attack came two days after aspiring nurse Tanaya Grant-Copeland was stabbed 32 times on a nearby street.
Police officials cited similarities in the knives recovered and in the dress of the attacker, as well as the assaults’ proximity.
“The knives were similar in the sense that they were both kitchen-type slicing knifes and had similar-looking black plastic handles and long blades,” said NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis.
Sources said they were made by the same manufacturer.
The attacks were four blocks apart and both seemingly random, Davis added.
In addition, “there is a video of someone leaving the area [in Friday’s attack] that is similarly dressed to the description that we have [in the second stabbing], so they have to take that into consideration,” he said.
Mikayla was critically wounded by the hulking man, who stabbed her and Prince Joshua in their Schenck Avenue building around 6 p.m. with a blade identified as Dura Edge by Imperial Knife.
The children had been going out to buy ice cream.
The fiend was bothered by their chatter and struck when they ignored his demand to “shut up,” cops said.
A woman who lives in the building believes she saw the attacker over the weekend walking from building to building at the public housing complex.
“I saw him Friday and again on Sunday, standing there shuffling back and forth,” said the woman, who also spoke to cops.
“He was wearing a gray hoodie, and he’s got a Caesar [close-cropped haircut]. A black man in his early 30s, stocky, maybe 5-foot-9. He looked a little crazy,” she said.
“I asked him, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ And he just walked away.”
The knives recovered near the scene of each attack didn’t have prints on them, but investigators are working to extract DNA, sources said.
Detectives flooded the area Monday. They were checking “plenty of leads,” a source said, but there was “nothing fruitful.”
There were no cameras in the city building where the Mikayla and Prince were stabbed — though a spokeswoman for the city Housing Authority said it was supposed to get them soon.
Resident Tracy Dauphine, who has a 7-year-old daughter, said she was “genuinely afraid for my child.”
“I will never leave her alone for a second, not as long as that psychopath is wandering around,” said Dauphine, 39.
“As long as he is out there, no children are safe.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan, Frank Rosario and Kate Sheehy