A Bronx man accused of stabbing his 54-year-old stepfather to death crept into the victim’s apartment through a third-floor window before the attack, anguished family and friends said.
“(He) broke into the apartment through the window,” said Rob Sheridan, a longtime friend of victim Craeg Robinson. “They had tensions like any other stepson and stepfather but this leaves me at a loss as to why he did this.”
Robinson was stabbed in the torso inside his apartment on Lyon Ave. near Zerega Ave. in Westchester Square about 7 p.m. March 31.
Daquann Alford, Robinson’s 23-year-old stepson, was quickly identified as the suspected stabber. Police took him into custody and charged him with murder, manslaughter, and weapon possession the next day, cops said Tuesday.
He remained in a local hospital Tuesday undergoing a psychological exam, police sources said. His arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court is pending.
Cops told Sheridan, 52, that Alford climbed the fire escape and entered Robinson’s third-floor apartment through a window.
The stepson grew up in the apartment but had not been recently living there, Sheridan said.
“His (family) was trying to keep him out of bad things,” Sheridan said of the suspect.
Medics rushed Robinson to Jacobi Medical Center but he could not be saved.
The killing left Robinson’s daughter Jacqueline Mena fighting back tears as she searched for answers.
“He was a great man,” Mena, 37, said. “We just had a great loss and we are grieving. He was loved.”
Robinson, Sheridan said, was a Castle Hill native who was “always in style.”
“We went through a lot together,” Sheridan, a vocational counselor, said about his fallen friend. “He was a Christian man. He was a family man. He was a church-going man.”
Before his slaying, Robinson was wanted for questioning for a robbery, according to police sources. He had 21 prior arrests in the city and in 2023 was charged with a Bronx robbery as well as for weapon possession and menacing, according to court records.
He ultimately pleaded guilty on the weapon possession charge and was given three years probation.
He was released without bail for the other charges and was due back in Bronx Criminal Court this Thursday, officials said.
