The straphanger who was stabbed to death in a random attack at an East Harlem subway station was loved as an “honest and sincere person,” neighbors told the Post.
Neighbors said Jason Volz, 54, a friendly and polite tenant of a Bronx apartment building where locals say he lived with his younger brother and sick father, died Monday evening. He said he encountered the victim hours before the fatal transport attack. .
“It hurts. I feel so devastated,” said building tenant Sammy Sanchez. “He’s a good citizen. A good guy. He holds the door for me when I walk up the stairs with his wife. We say ‘hello’ every time we meet.” He has never done anything wrong. ”
Sanchez, a 58-year-old disabled military veteran, said Volz moved in four years ago and ran his own business.
“It takes a lot of my soul for that to happen, and that’s just how it happens,” he said. “It was really heartbreaking because I knew this gentleman. It felt very callous and calculating for someone to do something like that.
“I woke up early in the morning, at 6 o’clock,” Sanchez added. “And then he left. That’s kind of funny, because he’s not in this world anymore.”
Police said Boltz was at the East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue station shortly before 7 p.m. Monday when he was thrown and struck by an incoming No. 4 train.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police arrested Carlton McPherson, 24, an erratic career criminal with a history of erratic behavior, and charged him with murder in the attack.
McPherson smiled eerily as she was led from the East Harlem Police Department on Tuesday to court where she was awaiting arraignment on the charges.
Law enforcement officials said the suspect, whose family said he suffered from bipolar disorder, had eight arrests on his rap sheet, four of which have since been sealed.
McPherson was charged with second-degree murder Tuesday night in Manhattan Criminal Court and ordered held without bail until his reappearance Friday.
Mr McPherson appeared confused in court and Judge Rachel Pauley was forced to suspend proceedings after he began making unintelligible noises in the courtroom.
Family members of the murder suspects were also in the audience.
“We send our condolences to the family of the deceased,” a relative said outside the courtroom. “Our prayers are with his family. Please respect our privacy during this difficult time.”
McPherson’s brother, Daquan, told The Post in an exclusive interview Tuesday that his family repeatedly asked McPherson for help, but he was turned down and despite their pleas, he was released from the hospital just two weeks before the fatal subway crash. He said he did.
“The City of Carleton has failed,” Daquan McPherson said. “The city is failing all mentally ill people. There’s too much red tape. He was just released from the hospital two weeks ago. We begged them to take him in, but they… She said she couldn’t keep him and let him go because he wasn’t a threat to her or anyone else.
“They released him,” he said. “In New York City, mentally ill people have two options: they can go to jail or they can do something that will make them into the newspapers.”
