Just Another Garden Variety 20-Year-Old Drifter

The idiot accused of stabbing four people — three tourists — out of the blue was neither a disgruntled tourguide nor a vengeful bellhop (as speculated earlier) but rather a mentally disturbed drifter not even old enough to drink:

The suspect was arrested without a struggle around 4:15 a.m. yesterday, the police said. He was identified by officials as Kenny Alexis, 20, a homeless man who has knocked around between New York and Boston.

All four victims survived, though the man from Texas and one of the Canadian women were in critical condition, and the police said there was no known motive for the attacks.

. . .

At 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, two hours before the first attack, police officers stopped Mr. Alexis when he allegedly tried to enter the subway station at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue without paying. The officers checked for any outstanding warrants, and when they found none, they issued him a summons and let him go, the authorities said.

About 15 hours later, detectives had Mr. Alexis under arrest and were taking him to the Midtown North Precinct station house. There they began to get a picture of his life and how he had spent his most recent hours, partly from Mr. Alexis’s own words and partly from police records.

As of last night, the police had charged Mr. Alexis with two counts of second-degree assault in the attack on the two Canadian women, along with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one count of unlawful possession of marijuana. In the attack on the C train passenger, Christopher McCarthy, 21, he was charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon. In the deli incident, the police charged him with robbery.

Witnesses had also picked him out of lineups and identified him in the C train stabbing and the deli fracas. In addition, Mr. Kelly said, he admitted committing all four stabbings in interviews with detectives.

Mr. Alexis told the police he had no home. The authorities said he had been arrested twice in New York — after he tried to board a subway in Harlem on Feb. 28 without paying the fare, and on April 25, after he tried to push his way past a ticket collector for a Chinatown bus headed to Atlantic City. He pleaded guilty in both cases, officials said.

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Alexis’s New York record included arrests with sealed records. Boston authorities said he had a criminal record there.

After he was questioned and charged, the police led Mr. Alexis out of the station house just before 9:30 p.m. to take him to Central Booking. Wearing jeans, a blue hospital smock and two diamond earrings, he was silent until he reached the police car, and then called out something unintelligible to reporters nearby.

Song of the Day: “Younger Bums” by Big Dipper (whose first EP is described therein with the phrase “bounces like a goddamn superball” — ah, Byron Coley* — now there’s a blast from the mid-to-late-80s past!)

*Is this for real? It’s ridiculous! (Link via.)