{"id":139151,"date":"2026-02-19T20:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/139151\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T20:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T20:20:11","slug":"man-found-guilty-of-murder-in-chinatown-bludgeoning-deaths-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/139151\/","title":{"rendered":"Man found guilty of murder in Chinatown bludgeoning deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who\u00a0fatally beat four sleeping men<\/a>\u00a0on the streets of New York City\u2019s Chinatown was convicted of murder Thursday, with a jury rejecting his insanity defense in the 2019 rampage.<\/p>\n

Randy Santos\u2019 attorneys had conceded that he pummeled the defenseless victims \u2014\u00a0Chuen Kok<\/a>,\u00a0Anthony Manson, Florencio Moran and Nazario V\u00e1squez Villegas<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 with a metal bar and meant to kill them.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

A man who\u00a0fatally beat four sleeping men\u00a0on the streets of New York City\u2019s Chinatown was convicted of murder Thursday, with a jury rejecting his insanity defense in the 2019 rampage
\n
Randy Santos\u2019 attorneys had conceded that he pummeled the defenseless victims \u2014\u00a0Chuen Kok,\u00a0Anthony Manson, Florencio Moran and Nazario V\u00e1squez Villegas\u00a0\u2014 with a metal bar and meant to kill them
\n
Santos\u2019 lawyers contended that he was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible. They said he was driven by schizophrenic delusions that made him believe he had to kill 40 people or would die himself
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Prosecutors countered that Santos took steps, such as sometimes looking out for potential witnesses, and subsequently made remarks that showed that he knew that the attacks were both illegal and immoral<\/p>\n

But Santos\u2019 lawyers contended that he was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible. They said he was driven by schizophrenic delusions that made him believe he had to kill 40 people or would die himself.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors countered that Santos took steps, such as sometimes looking out for potential witnesses, and subsequently made remarks that showed that he knew that the attacks were both illegal and immoral.<\/p>\n

Santos, 31, showed no reaction as he heard the verdict, through headphones, via a Spanish-language interpreter.<\/p>\n

The killings spurred scrutiny of the city’s struggles to aid and protect a homeless population that had reached record size.<\/p>\n

Santos was homeless, as were some of the victims. The slain men ranged in age from 39 to 83.<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Arnold Levine contended in a closing argument Wednesday that Santos might have recognized he could land in legal trouble but couldn’t appreciate that what he was doing was morally wrong. The moral factor would be enough \u2014 if jurors accept it and agree that mental illness caused it \u2014 to support his insanity defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only explanation was Randy\u2019s psychosis. … It\u2019s the only thing that explains what happened,\u201d Levine told jurors, adding that \u201cpsychosis replaced Randy\u2019s moral judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Santos realized the attacks were both illegal and immoral. Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson emphasized Wednesday that Santos sometimes looked out for potential witnesses and that he told a psychiatrist in 2024: \u201cI know it\u2019s not a good action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite his illness, he was able to make a determination that what he was doing was wrong,\u201d Peterson said in his summation.<\/p>\n

The Dominican-born Santos followed the trial via a Spanish-language interpreter, listening without showing much reaction to the summations Wednesday. At one point, he briefly fluttered his hands near his face as Levine described a delusional Santos lashing out at his own grandfather long before the Chinatown killings.<\/p>\n

With the convictions, Santos could be sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who\u00a0fatally beat four sleeping men\u00a0on the streets of New York City\u2019s Chinatown was convicted of murder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10015,387,25,118,303,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,308,380,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-139151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-app-crime","9":"tag-app-public-safety","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-associated-press","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-manhattan","14":"tag-manhattan-headlines","15":"tag-manhattan-news","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-public-safety","21":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}