A man pleaded guilty to murder on Tuesday for brutally stabbing a woman to death after he "mercilessly stalked" her from the street into her Manhattan apartment building.
Assamad Nash, 27, also pleaded guilty to burglary as a sexually motivated felony in the Feb. 13, 2022, attack on 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee, in which police said Nash stabbed the victim more than 40 times in the neck and torso.
“Today Assamad Nash was held accountable for senselessly taking Christina Yuna Lee’s life after he followed her into her own home,” District Attorney Bragg said in a statement. Bragg said his thoughts "are with her family and our community as they continue healing from this tragedy.”
Prosecutors said Lee was returning home from a Saturday night out when Nash followed her into her Chrystie Street building in Chinatown and up six flights of stairs to her apartment. The building's landlord said that Nash "mercilessly stalked" his victim, and images obtained by NBC New York showed him following her up the stairs.
As Lee entered the apartment, Nash pushed his way inside and attempted to sexually assault her, prosecutors said.
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"She opened the door and he just slipped in right behind her. She never even knew he was there," Lee's landlord, Brian Chin, previously told NBC New York.
Lee's screams pierced through the building just after 4 a.m., which led two young women who live across the hall to call 911. Officers got to the building in three minutes.
Prosecutors said Lee was still alive when officers arrived in the building, as they could hear her cries and screams for help, but the door was barricaded. Police had to break the apartment's steel door down to get inside, and got inside as Lee went silent. They found Nash hiding under a mattress and Lee dead in the bathroom with at least 40 stab wounds; the alleged murder weapon was under a dresser.
Officials familiar with the case said Nash had five prior felonies and three pending court cases on various matters.
Leaders of New York's Asian American community feared that the murder of Lee, who was Korean American, was part of a wave of anti-Asian violence during the coronavirus pandemic, but Nash was not ultimately charged with a hate crime.
Just five weeks before the alleged killing, Nash had been caught jamming dozens of MetroCard machines in early January. He was released without bail and granted supervised release, but was not ordered to undergo psychological examination by mental health professionals, which could have led to him being recommended for professional treatment.
Nash, who had previously been found unfit to stand trial following a psychiatric examination, is expected to be sentenced to 30 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on July 30. Attorney information for Nash was not immediately available.
