The New Year had barely begun when 2010 claimed its first murder victim – a man fatally stabbed outside a Brooklyn house party, police said.
Kirk Holgate, 21, was standing on the corner of Ashford Street and Pitkin Avenue in East New York around 2:50 Friday morning with an unidentified male when an altercation broke out with an unknown suspect, police said.
Holgate was stabbed several times in the groin and his face, but managed to stumble down the block to 369 Ashford St., where his wife Liz was inside celebrating the New Year with friends, witnesses said.
“He stumbled in and said, “I’m shot, stop the bleeding, please, please, just stop the bleeding,’” said Isabel Rodriguez, who was hosting the party.
“His wife can’t believe it. I just spoke with her on the phone. She’s completely hysterical.”
Holgate was transported to Brookdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:34 a.m., police said.
The unidentified male with him when the assault occurred was also stabbed.
Police found him with knife wounds in his back, sitting in a car parked on Ashford Street. He was taken to Brookdale Hospital, where he’s in stable condition.
Police had no details on what sparked the deadly attack.
“He was the greatest father. Every time I see him he was with his son,” said Joey, 35, a neighborhood friend.
Just hours after Holgate’s murder, the second homicide of the New Year occurred, police said.
A 28-year-old male who’d been shot in the face walked into the 81st Precinct in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn just before 6 a.m., police said. He was taken to a local hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.
A suspect was taken into custody, police said.