The woman accused of stabbing U.S. Postal Service worker Ray Hodges to death inside a Harlem deli admitted to his murder in a stunning confession made hours after the killing, telling investigators she laughed as her victim lay dying, court documents show.
“I hope he’s maggot food,” Jaia Cruz, 24, told detectives in a statement recorded at the 28th Precinct stationhouse hours after the Jan. 2 stabbing, according to court documents.
“I killed him laughing,” she said. “Oh, well. I’ll piss on his grave.”
Cruz was indicted Thursday for second-degree murder in the 2:30 p.m. stabbing of the 36-year-old postman at Joe’s Grocery, on Lenox Rd. near W. 118th St.
She pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.
The defendant told detectives that Hodges accused her of cutting him in the sandwich line at the deli before ridiculing her with homophobic remarks, according to court documents.
“I did spit on him because he called me a f—-t,” Cruz’s confession reads. “I called him a dirty monkey. You said hurtful words, so I said hurtful words to you.”
As their dispute escalated, Cruz claimed that Hodges struck her three times before she pulled a knife and stabbed him in self-defense, according to court documents.
“I told him, ‘You come to me and I’ll kill you,’” Cruz told investigators. “No motherf—-rs are going to put their hands on me no more.”
“He tried to mess with me because I’m trans and I poked him up,” said Cruz, who is a transgender woman.
Hodges, who lived in the Bronx, reacted to the stabbing with astonishment, saying, “You really stabbed me?” to which Cruz replied, “Yes I did,” court documents state.
Cruz insisted throughout her Jan. 2 confession that she “blacked out” during the attack and that she suffers from “mental issues,” according to court documents.
“My crazy has no rhyme or rhythm,” Cruz told prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. “I told him, ‘If you raise your hands, I’m going to stab you in the f–king jugular. You attacking me.’”
Cruz stands a towering 6 feet 5 inches tall. Witnesses to the murder described her as huge, and said she appeared to be high on drugs during her confrontation with Hodges.
One witness said that she and another woman made multiple attempts to break up the fight but that neither combatant was willing to back down.
“I got in between them — twice,” said Janet Rich, who was in the deli buying coffee when the fight broke out. “There was another woman with dreadlocks [who] said, ‘Don’t do this. You have a good job. Let this go.’”
Cell phone footage recorded by Rich shows the wounded postal worker lying on the deli floor in a pool of blood as a man attempts to help him.
Medics rushed the victim to Harlem Hospital, where he died.
Cruz fled to her apartment located on W. 118th St. just a few doors down from the deli before her arrest later that night, sources said.
Hodges, who joined the U.S. Postal Service in 2022 and worked out of the Morningside Post Office, was remembered as an “honorable man” by friends and family.
“Ray was a great person,” his brother told The News the day after Hodges’ death. “He was an honorable man. He took care of his family and everybody. Respectful.”
One of Hodges’ longtime neighbors, who would only identify herself as Mrs. Jenkins, broke down in tears as she wondered how a simple disagreement could end up in so much bloodshed.
“He is such a polite person. He holds the door for me and everybody,” said Mrs. Jenkins, 65, who couldn’t come to terms with what happened.
“It’s coward-like. Why?” she asked. “It’s senseless. I mean why?”
