{"id":153019,"date":"2026-03-04T22:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153019\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T22:58:09","slug":"nyc-man-was-mentally-obsessed-with-retired-teacher-he-allegedly-stabbed-to-death-neighbors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153019\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC man was ‘mentally obsessed’ with retired teacher he allegedly stabbed to death: neighbors"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disturbed Queens man was \u201cmentally obsessed\u201d with his 75-year-old retired teacher neighbor and even trashed his car years before he allegedly stabbed the elderly victim to death<\/a>, friends said. <\/p>\n

Dimitrios Manessis, 48, had a bizarre, long-running gripe with George Dourdounas \u2014 leading the younger man to blow up in a violent rage on Tuesday afternoon and allegedly slash Dourdounas to death in the Astoria building\u2019s lobby, a neighbor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy who killed him, he has issues for no reason in his brain,\u201d one upstairs neighbor told The Post.<\/p>\n

Dimitrios Manessis \u2014 seen with blood on his left shoe \u2014 was charged with murder for allegedly stabbing his 75-year-old neighbor to death Tuesday. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s his obsession,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019d talk in the streets about George. We walk, he talk about George. I told him, \u2018Jimmy, why do you put all your energy on George? Think of something else.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cI told him, \u2018Take George out of your brain,’\u201d she added. \u201cIt was a mental obsession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbors in the building at 25-75 33rd Street said the accused killer lived in the building with his mother, and has long been fixated with Dourdounas, who was described as a beloved figure among neighbors. <\/p>\n

The accused killer for some reason ridiculed the victim\u2019s Greek heritage \u2014 even though he is also of Greek descent. He even took a bat to Dourdounas\u2019 car about three years ago.<\/p>\n

Police said Dimitrios Manessis flew into a rage and stabbed neighbor George Dourdounas to death. Google maps<\/p>\n

Neighbors at the Astoria apartment building said Dimitrios Manessis was \u201cmentally obsessed\u201d with his neighbor. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, police and neighbors said Manessis erupted in a deadly attack, slashing the victim\u2019s neck and leaving him dying in the lobby. <\/p>\n

Police said EMS pronounced Dourdounas dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Manessis was taken into custody for questioning and charged with murder and illegal weapons possession at the 114th Precinct stationhouse about five hours later. <\/p>\n

A photo taken by one tenant showed the accused killer being handcuffed by police inside the building \u2014 with his right shoe still splattered with blood.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, a woman stopped by to drop off white carnations at the scene.<\/p>\n

George Dourdounas, 75, was pronounced dead in the lobby of his Astoria apartment building. Photos Peter Gerber<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s breaking my heart,\u201d said the woman, who asked to be identified only as Diana J. \u201c[Dourdounas] was a humble person. He stood away from people. He wasn\u2019t a person to go back and forth with people. He wouldn\u2019t have an argument with people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is more mind-boggling that you would see this with him,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s not confrontational like that. It doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disturbed Queens man was \u201cmentally obsessed\u201d with his 75-year-old retired teacher neighbor and even trashed his car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3814,19085,57,238,9,56,63,65,64,103,122,2442,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-153019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-astoria","9":"tag-investigations","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-murders","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nyc-headlines","16":"tag-nyc-news","17":"tag-nypd","18":"tag-queens","19":"tag-stabbings","20":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153019","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=153019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}