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Queens Village Man Found Murdered

Of new years firsts, the most distressing is the years first murder. This year, the first homicide in Queens came early on the morning of January first, when Louis Rigos discovered his fathers body inside the mans Queens Village home. The 70-year-old cook never showed up to open the restaurant he owned on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, prompting family and coworkers to suspect that something was wrong.
George Rigos normally opened the Silver Spoon Restaurant on First Avenue at 5:30 a.m. but at approximately 8:30 a.m., he was found inside his second-story apartment, the victim of a brutal stabbing.
Rigos immigrated to New York from Greece about 50 years ago. He worked his way up at the Silver Spoon Restaurant to head cook and then owner in 1986. He had seven children and 21 grandchildren. They were among those who gathered outside his home on the day his body was discovered.
Police said that there were no signs of forced entry or an interrupted robbery, and the motive for the murder has not yet been determined. There was facial trauma. They are searching for Rigos roommate, whose identity has not yet been released and has not been seen or heard from since before the crime. The two men had shared the apartment for several years.
Rigos murder occurred only a day before Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced that preliminary NYPD statistics showed that Queens led New York City in crime reduction during 2003. Patrol Borough Queens North reported a 7.29% decrease in violent crime and Patrol Borough Queens South reported a 6.72% decrease. Brown attributed the decrease to several factors including smarter crime fighting strategies, targeted deployment of law enforcement resources to problem areas and aggressive prosecution of career criminals and violent offenders despite budget cuts and the added burden of counter-terrorism efforts.