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Trevon Murphy, a 42-year-old man who was himself homeless, had
pleaded guilty in January to one count of murder in the second
degree and two counts of attempted murder for the attacks.
"New Yorkers who face the painful and difficult experience of
being unhoused shouldn't have to simultaneously fear for their
safety," District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the chief prosecutor for
Manhattan, said in a statement.
On three separate occasions between July 5 and July 11, 2022,
Murphy approached his victims as they slept in city parks at
night and stabbed them in the lower abdomen.
In the first attack, in Manhattan's Hudson River Park, Murphy's
victim, a 34-year-old man, died in a nearby hospital. The two
other men, one of whom was attacked in a midtown park, the other
in an Upper East Side playground, survived serious injuries.
Murphy had been homeless for about 25 years at the time of his
attacks, and has schizophrenia, hallucinations and other mental
illnesses, according to Kevin Canfield, who became Murphy's
defense lawyer after Murphy entered his guilty plea.
The court denied Murphy's motion to withdraw his guilty plea and
to instead face a jury trial with a "psychiatric defense,"
Canfield said. He planned to appeal that denial.
"He wants to be sentenced to a psychiatric facility," Canfield
said, not a prison.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Bill
Berkrot and Stephen Coates)
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