By Kathianne Boniello
A man who attempted suicide after he allegedly killed both his boss and his wife was expected to survive Monday after spending more than a week in intensive care at North Shore University Hospital, a spokeswoman said.
Juan Rolan of Mastic, L.I., was suspected of fatally shooting his manager at the Beech Hills apartment complex in Douglaston on Jan. 21 and strangling his wife to death in Deer Park, L.I.
After he allegedly killed Victor Sanchez, 62, of Bellerose, police said Rolan, 49, shot himself in the head in an apparent suicide attempt.
Rolan underwent surgery at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset the day of the shootings and was in critical condition for the next 10 days.
North Shore Hospital spokeswoman Laura Green said Monday Rolan's condition had been upgraded to satisfactory and that he was no longer in intensive care.
“As far as we can tell,” she said, “his condition has improved.”
Police have not said how many times Rolan had shot himself and Green would only describe his wounds as “serious head injuries.”
Sherry Hunter, a spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney's office, said Rolan had been neither charged nor arraigned yet because of his physical condition.
Capt. Anthony Mullen of the 111th Police Precinct, which is working with Suffolk County police on the murder investigations, said Rolan would be charged with the crimes in the near future.
“He's going to live, and he's going to be charged with the murders,” Mullen said. “They won't do that until they feel he's fully competent.”
Authorities said Rolan came to his job as an assistant grounds foreman at the Beech Hills cooperative complex in Douglaston early on Jan. 21 and approached another employee who is a retired transit officer.
Rolan then took the retired officer's gun and locked him in a garage before going to another office in the development and shooting Sanchez once in the head, police said.
Homicide detectives in Suffolk County said they believed Rolan killed his wife between 5:30 a.m. and 6:20 a.m. earlier the same morning of the shootings in Douglaston.
Police said they found Rolan's 42-year-old wife strangled to death inside the couple's car in Deer Park, just blocks from a relative's home.
The incident was the first murder in the 111th Precinct, which covers Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Auburndale, Oakland Gardens, and parts of Flushing, in more than a year.
Mullen told members of the 111th Precinct Community Council at a meeting Tuesday night that the murder at Beech Hills “was not a random act of violence.
“This was a deranged individual who planned to kill his boss that day and did,” Mullen said. “Prior to that he also killed his wife in Suffolk County.”
