A Queens man on Sunday night confessed to murdering his 8-year-old son and then tried to commit suicide, police sources said.
The 41-year-old father was found with cuts on his wrist, lying on a bed in his apartment in a four-family building on Underhill Avenue in Flushing. A two-gallon bucket filled with blood was in the bathroom, along with the child’s bloody clothes, the sources said.
Cops believe the blood in the bucket and on the clothing came from the man’s self-inflicted wounds.
The boy’s body was on another bed. There were signs of trauma on his neck, the sources said.
When EMS medics arrived at the home, the dad told them he had strangled his son that morning.
Cops rushed to the scene shortly after 10 p.m. after a woman called 911 and said a man was inside his apartment, had been taking pills, and was trying to kill himself, the sources said.
She said she was concerned about the youngster.
The identity of the caller was not immediately clear.
The man’s wife was not home when cops arrived.
Police were looking for her so they could break the tragic news.
“He was a very happy kid,” said a neighbor of the little boy.
The dad is an immigrant from Africa, the neighbor said, adding, “He’s a good guy, always ready to help people.”
What happened, the neighbor said, “is hard to imagine. I would never have seen this coming.”
Another neighbor, Abed Islam, said that the couple often had “very loud disagreements.’’
Their arguments, he said, “were verbal, very loud.’’
The wife had left the home for a while, he said, and they attempted to reconcile when she returned.
“They tried to patch things up but it was still stormy in terms of their relationship,” Islam said.
“They got into a lot of fights.”
He said the man had confided to him that his wife “had a plan to split the family apart so she could leave.’’
The dad was taken to Queens General Hospital and is expected to survive.
The mother works at Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx, according to neighbors.
Their names were withheld pending notification of the mother and other relatives.
Additional reporting by Kenneth Garger and Antonio Antenucci