Maksim Gelman became obsessed with Yelena Bulchenko after she refused his romantic overtures, her friends say, and the New York man had reportedly been stalking her for months before that obsession allegedly triggered a flurry of violence that left Bulchenko and three others dead.
"They were never a couple. [They were] barely friends," Andrey Andriak told the New York Daily News. "He wanted to take it to the next level and she didn't."
A college friend of Bulchenko's said the 6-foot-2, 260-pound man contacted her constantly.
"He would call and text her all the time, but she would never answer back," Lauren Vasquez told the Daily News. "He didn't get it. It was all in his head that they were together or would be together."
David Karp, APMaksim Gelman of Brooklyn, who is accused of going on a 28-hour stabbing rampage through New York City, center, is led by officers outside the 61st Precinct in Brooklyn on Sunday.
Bulchenko had been dating a man from Brooklyn named Gerard Honig.
"He was a sick bastard," Honig told the newspaper about Gelman. "He was crazy and doing a lot of drugs."
Gelman, 23, has racked up a half-dozen arrests in recent years on drug, robbery, aggravated harassment and graffiti charges, the Daily News reported.
According to police and media reports, the terrifying series events this weekend unfolded like this:
Friday morning, Gelman stabbed his stepfather, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, to death when the 54-year-old man refused to let him borrow his car, police said. Gelman then drove to Bulchenko's home. On his way, he ran reportedly down a crossing guard, breaking both her legs.
Police said Gelman then stabbed 56-year-old Anna Bulchenko to death and lay in wait for her 20-year-old daughter. When Yelena arrived at the house, Gelman allegedly chased her into the street and stabbed her to death.
Three were dead, but the spree wasn't over.
Gelman reportedly rear-ended a car and then slashed the driver, Art DiCrescento, 60, and stole his car. When he sped off, he allegedly struck and killed Steven Tannenbaum, a 60-year-old pedestrian.
A short while later, the vehicle Gelman allegedly stole was found abandoned, with its engine running, near the Brooklyn College campus. Authorities brought a team of tracking dogs to the scene and tracked Gelman's scent to a freight-train overpass, where they made an eerie discovery, The New York Post reported.
The dogs took police to a cinder-block shack, where they found some disturbing graffiti. Someone had spray-painted blood-red hearts and the name "Yelena." Gelman had been arrested for spray-painting graffiti on the same structure before, The Post reported.
As police searched the shack, Gelman hailed a livery cab in Bedford-Stuyvesant and attacked the driver, sources told the Post. When the car crashed, Gelman ran, police said.
Gelman then allegedly attacked a man named Sheldon Pottinger on the Eastern Parkway and stole his vehicle.
On Saturday morning, Gelman boarded a subway train and allegedly attacked a male passenger named Joseph Lozito.
"He took out a giant knife and just looked at me and said, 'You're going to die, you're going to die,' and then he lunged at me," Lozito told ABC's "Good Morning America" today.
The two men fought briefly and a police officer who was on the train helped subdue Gelman, ending his 28-hour stabbing spree. Lozito said it was not until after the scuffle that he realized he had been stabbed in the head and hand.
"When I sat up, that's when I noticed all the blood pouring down on me. I'd never seen anything like that in my life," he told "Good Morning America."
Lozito was taken to a hospital where he received multiple stitches. He was released this morning.
On Sunday, Gelman was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, robbery charges and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. When he was being led inside the courthouse, tension among the onlookers erupted and shouts of "Pig!" and "Killer!" could be heard, the Post reported.
According to the newspaper, Gelman responded angrily, telling the crowd to "Shut up!" and saying, "This was a setup, man. This is bulls---."
Gelman was back in a Brooklyn courtroom today to be assigned a new attorney.
He was born in the Ukraine and became a naturalized U.S. citizen about five years ago, according to reports. He lived in Brooklyn with his mother and stepfather. His mother told police he appeared to be high when he attacked his stepfather.
Police say they are still trying to determine a motive in the alleged killing spree.
"What's so horrendous and bizarre, we have no reason that we can give you as to why he did this," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a weekend press conference.
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