{"id":231469,"date":"2026-05-14T15:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231469\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T15:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:05:08","slug":"handyman-guilty-of-killing-three-elderly-women-in-brooklyn-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/231469\/","title":{"rendered":"Handyman Guilty of Killing Three Elderly Women in Brooklyn Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" News12 Bronx<\/p>\n

Sadistic serial killer Kevin Gavin murdered three elderly women<\/a> living at the same New York City high-rise apartment building during a span of six years by ingratiating himself to them as their \u201chelpful handyman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavin, 71, was arrested on Jan. 21, 2021, after he was caught on store surveillance cameras using a debit card belonging to third victim Juanita Caballero, 78, who was found days earlier with a telephone cord tightly wrapped around her neck, The Brooklyn District Attorney\u2019s Office said in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\" GoFundMe<\/p>\n

However, Darrin James tells Globe he believes Juanita would be alive today if police<\/a> had heeded his warnings and investigated the creep following the stomping death of his 83-year-old grandmother, Jacolia James \u2014 Gavin\u2019s second victim \u2014 whose battered body was discovered in her 11th-floor apartment on April 30, 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was perfectly fine when I left, and when I came back, she was dead,\u201d Darrin says, recalling the chilling moment he saw Gavin, who lived on the sixth floor, trying to sweet-talk his way into his grandma\u2019s apartment that same morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tried to pin her murder on me; they tried to say I did it,\u201d Darrin, 40, says. \u201cI feel if they would\u2019ve focused on the information I gave them and went and talked to the guy that knocked on my grandmother\u2019s door there wouldn\u2019t have been a third victim!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" AP<\/p>\n

The reign of terror at the Carter G. Woodson Houses for senior citizens began Nov. 8, 2015, when 82-year-old Myrtle McKinney was found inside her apartment with a stab wound to the neck, three broken ribs and blunt force trauma of the head and body, according to Intelligencer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis defendant exploited elderly women who trusted him, gained access to their homes, and murdered them in a series of brutal attacks that shocked the conscience,\u201d Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said, per the press release.<\/p>\n

Gavin eventually pleaded guilty to murder in Brooklyn Supreme Court in exchange for 30 years to life on April 24, and he will be officially sentenced<\/a> on May 20 after family members are given the chance to rip into him during their victim impact statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like a complete weirdo \u2014 like the type of dude that would try to press up against an elderly woman that can\u2019t defend herself,\u201d Darrin tells Globe. \u201cHe was the neighbor from hell!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News12 Bronx Sadistic serial killer Kevin Gavin murdered three elderly women living at the same New York City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,303,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-231469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-crime","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231469","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=231469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}