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On Saturday morning, the body of a Hungarian woman, Orsolya Gaál, was found in Queens, New York. Since then, more and more unofficial police information is emerging about the circumstances of the murder.
A dog walker, Glenn Van Nostrand, found the sports bag with the body inside and called 911. The bag was spotted near Metropolitan Avenue and Forest Park Drive in Queens, New York. While most sources say that the body was dismembered, The Sun reports that investigators said Gaál’s body was still intact.
The blood trail led investigators to a nearby house where they found a 13-year-old boy. He, however, could not say where his mother was. He was then taken in for questioning in handcuffs and was later released on Saturday evening.
According to the local press, police are holding two people as suspects: her older son, 17, and her husband, Howard Klein, who were out of New York State on Saturday. They were reportedly in Portland on a college visit. They have since returned home and police have begun questioning them, Telex reports.
[My son] Leo is safe. Thank God [my son] is safe,”
Klein said. Gaál’s husband is the founder of RK Equity Advisors — a boutique capital markets advisory firm focused on lithium-ion battery materials. He said that he was at the airport preparing to fly back to New York and was “in the middle of a terrible experience.” He also added:
There are concerns about our safety. Our lives are at risk.”
Klein reportedly received a text saying “Your whole family is next.”
The New York Post writes, sourcing the autopsy, that the Hungarian woman was brutally stabbed nearly 60 times. Gaál sustained about 60 sharp injuries to her neck, torso, and left arm. Wounds were discovered on her carotid artery and trachea. She was also discovered with knife wounds inside her fingers and on the palms of her hands.
Gaál apparently told her younger son that she was heading out to watch a show Friday night, but met up with another man. According to The New York Post, Gaál spent some of her final hours puttering around her yard and enjoying a night out with friends. Then, a video caught a figure lugging the hockey duffel bag down the street, around 4:30 a.m.
It’s a mystery,”
a source from the New York City Police Department said. “Now it’s a question of piecing together everything she did that night.” Detectives have found no sign of a break-in at the house. They believe the suspect knew the victim.
The police are pulling video and receipts from the places Gaál went on the night of her death. “She knew the people she was out with,’’ the source added. “We’re talking to them. We also have to figure out, did she meet some mysterious stranger along the way?”
The neighbors are shocked by what happened. “[I am] super shocked. Just unbelievable. How could this happen? […] A tragedy,” said John Blankson, who also told CBS New York that their families used to have dinner at each other’s places and Gaál also babysat for his kids sometimes. “She was out there living her life and making sure her kids were well-looked-after like any mother would. This is the last thing I’d expect to wake up to,” Johnson’s wife, Nicola said.
Local Susan Ram said:
I was just watching ‘Criminal Minds’ and it’s like that. This is [a] TV psychopath thing.”
“I can’t even understand how terrifying this is,” said another area resident, who would only give his name as Rick. “It’s very unusual to see this. I don’t know how this could happen around here.”
Hungarian tabloid Bors was able to reach Gaál’s mother, Babi. The woman said that even the US police do not know anything for certain, and that she was outraged by the many untruths reported in the foreign media about her daughter’s death. She said:
It is a terrible pain to lose Orsi. I have to come to terms with it somehow.”
Featured image: The house of Orsolya Gaál and her family. Photo: screen capture from CBS New York’s YouTube video
