Crime Scene

Today, April 16, 2007, was a lot like Sept. 15, 1999, when a storm and violence came together.

While much of the county was under water today due to the Nor’easter pounding the area with rain since Saturday night, Haverstraw town police arrested Andrew Jennings for murder. He is accused of stabbing a man multiple times in the chest in an Haverstraw village apartment on Route 9W after an aborted drug deal.

Earlier today, Stony Point Point police arrested a woman, Meredith Collins, on a bank robbery charge for stealing $4,000 from Commerce Bank yesterday.

And late tonight in Pearl River, Eric Alberts shot himself in the head after barricading himself in a Highview Avenue house, refusing requests by police negotiators that he give up. He had been
visiting a woman friend when he pulled out a gun. She ran off. Alberts died at 10:30 p.m. at Nyack Hospital.

Outside of Rockland, a guman killed 32 students today at a Virgina College – during the week of the Columbine high school massacre.

Now, hark back to Sept. 15, 1999, the eve of Hurricane Floyd. it was raining and windy, but the storm had not even come close to peaking.

On Lariat Court in Nanuet, Stephen Stafford attacked his parents, beating his father and stabbing his mother multiple times with a knife. His father later died while his mother recovered. Stafford had a history of mental illness.

When Clarkstown police arrived at the scene, Stafford jumped from the second-floor window, ignored Tazer stun gun shots and stabbed then-Lt. Robert Mahon three times in the back with a 6-inch-steak knife, the same weapon Stafford used on his mother.

Clarkstown police officers then shot Stafford to death, hitting him with 14 shots. A grand jury found the officers actions justified. Mahon spent several days in the hospital.

There was more tragedy that night.

Several miles away on Criki Lane, off Lawrence Street in Nanuet on the Spring Valley border, Michelle Despinasse was shot dead in her family home. Despinasse, 27, was a former Rockland Community College basketball player then coaching at the school. Her sister found her body at the front door inside the house.

Later charged with murder by the Clarkstown police and a grand jury was her former boyfriend Ken Rogers of the Bronx.
The major piece of evidence was Despinasse’s taped words on the telephone recorder. ‘’Stop, Ken. Ken, stop. Will you stop,’’ Despinasse is heard saying on the tape before she screams and a ‘’bang’’ is heard.
Rogers was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He lost an appeal of his conviction.

Weather forecasters had compared the potential gravity of this Nor’easter with Hurricane Floyd. They were talking about rain and wind, not violence.

Deja vu doesn’t always mean pleasant memories.