By Jeremy Walsh
A 24−year−old technician with the NYPD’s crime lab was found bound and stabbed to death in her Sunnyside apartment Monday morning, police said.
Michelle Lee, a civilian employee at the lab, was killed sometime during the weekend in her bed, a police source said. She was not found until Monday morning when her roommate, another lab technician who returned to the apartment Sunday night, noticed Lee had not gotten up and went to rouse her.
Police believe Lee knew her attacker because the apartment had not been ransacked and there were no signs of a struggle, the source said, noting police were looking for an ex−boyfriend.
Lee and her roommate both started at the crime lab in September, the source said. They became friends and rented the apartment on 41st Street just south of Queens Boulevard in March, the source said.
Neighbors on the street Tuesday morning said they did not know Lee personally and indicated there was little about the block that would have prepared them for a murder.
“It’s pretty quiet except for the weekends,” said Aloysius Ferguson, 46, who lives in a nearby building. “Then the drinkers, they blow it up.”
Dennis Mijat, son of the owner of the building where Lee was killed, said they have not had a history of trouble in the building.
“Nobody heard nothing,” he said of the murder.
Lee’s death was the first homicide of the year in the 108th Precinct, which covers Long Island City, Sunnyside and Woodside.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e−mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 154.
