A Brooklyn jogger’s father found her bleeding on a dark path. A teacher’s aide is now charged with killing her

CNN, WABC, NYPD, WCBS

By Gloria Pazmino, Chris Boyette, Cindy Von Quednow, Alaa Elassar, CNN

(CNN) — A teacher’s aide who briefly worked as a New York City police officer has been charged with murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of a jogger, according to court documents.

Sayed Mohassib was arrested Saturday, more than a week after 28-year-old Katie Suarez was stabbed in the neck while jogging in Brooklyn.

He was working for the New York City Department of Education, the department confirmed Sunday. The department has suspended Mohassib and will move to terminate his employment pending the outcome of the case, it said in a statement to CNN.

“The safety of our students is our very top priority,” the statement read. “We are supporting the NYPD in their investigation however is needed.”

“This attack on Katie Suarez was horrific,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday. The mayor said the city’s hearts are with her loved ones, “who have been shattered by this,” and stressed “our commitment to hold the individual responsible fully accountable.”

For Suarez’s parents, the arrest brings no undoing of that night: a frantic search along a dark path, and the moment her father found their only daughter bleeding beneath a tree.

“She never thought that something like this could happen to her,” Suarez’s mother, Yasira Suarez, told CNN affiliate WABC. “I would always tell her, ‘Honey, you have to be careful, you have to be careful,’ and she would say, ‘Ma, nothing is going to happen to me, ma I’ll be fine, nothing is going to happen to me, ma.’”

Now, in the wake of Suarez’s death, details about Mohassib’s past are gaining scrutiny, and Suarez’s parents are left mourning a daughter they were waiting for less than a mile from the attack.

Her family’s frantic search in the dark

Suarez, an avid runner who had completed marathons before, had been training for another, according to a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation.

On the evening of October 30, Suarez left the bank where she worked and went for a run on the Shore Parkway Greenway, along the Brooklyn waterfront, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters last week.

“It was her usual routine. She would leave work. She would change into running clothes, hand her mother her work clothes, and then she would go for a run,” Kenny said. “And then mom would wait for her. … They’re a very close family. They do everything together.”

As she was running, her mother and father were less than a mile away, waiting for her at a Wendy’s next to her workplace, according to Kenny. Yasira Suarez had planned to run with her daughter that night but couldn’t make it, she told WABC.

Around 8 p.m., Katie told her father during a phone call that she was about a half mile away and would be done in 10 minutes, Kenny said. When she didn’t arrive, Yasira Suarez went looking for her, the mother told WABC.

“I think I must have gone past the spot where she actually was. I didn’t see her because it was dark,” Yasira Suarez told WABC.

Her husband joined the search and found their daughter collapsed beneath a tree, bleeding from the neck, Kenny said. She couldn’t speak to him, and he screamed for a passerby to call 911, according to the detective.

“He called me and he said, ‘She’s here, I just found her,’” Yasira Suarez told WABC. “I didn’t even respond, I just ran all the way back, it felt like miles, like I’d never get there, but I just wanted to reach her.”

Katie was taken to a hospital, where she died from her injuries, according to a criminal complaint. Her death came three days after the attack, her family told WABC.

Suspect tried to get rid of evidence, prosecutors allege

Mohassib is seen on surveillance video walking to the area of the running path before the incident and is later seen in surveillance video running from the area after the stabbing, the complaint alleges.

Video also captures him returning to his home and “emerging fifteen minutes later wearing only underwear and subsequently throwing items into a garbage chute,” the charging document states.

When shown the surveillance video by detectives, Mohassib confirmed it was him, authorities said.

Prosecutors say he said that on the night of the incident, he went to the path with a knife because “people were going to come and kill his family,” according to the charging document.

He told police he sat on a bench and “became covered in blood” but had not stabbed anyone. Prosecutors say he said he ran home, got rid of the bloody clothes and knife, washed the blood off his hands and tried to clean blood in his apartment, according to the document.

Mohassib was arraigned Saturday and has been charged with murder, and two counts each of tampering with evidence and possession of a weapon. He is due back in court Tuesday morning.

CNN has sought comment from Mohassib’s attorney.

Suspect’s time in the military, police department was brief

Mohassib worked as an NYPD officer for a little more than a month in 2022 before being granted extended military leave. In late November of that year, his firearm was removed and never given back, according to the department.

His last duty assignment in the military was with the Marines on December 15, 2022, in South Carolina, the Marines told CNN on Sunday.

“Mohassib’s premature discharge is indicative that his service was incongruent with Marine Corps’ expectations and standards,” the Marines said in a release Sunday.

Mohassib filed for resignation from the NYPD on December 16, 2022, but in January 2023, he requested to be reinstated with the department. His request was denied, the NYPD told CNN.

“Several supervisors observed that he exhibited concerning behavior and appeared disheveled,” the NYPD told CNN. “That same day, he was transported to Bellevue Hospital.”

His mother, Fatma Mohassib, said she is “in deep pain” and insisted her son was of good character in an interview with CNN affiliate WABC. She also acknowledged concerns about her son’s mental health, according to the news outlet.

“He’s a black belt, he goes to Boy Scouts all his life, goes to the mosque all his life, he goes to Brooklyn College, the team basketball, excellent boy,” she said following his arrest.

CNN has asked Brooklyn College for details about Mohassib’s attendance.

‘You took an angel’

To those who knew her, Suarez was a familiar, warm presence in the Brooklyn neighborhood where she worked as a teller at a TD Bank branch, CNN affiliate NY1 reported.

“She always treated me and my wife great. She was always sweet, always with a smile,” bank customer Richard Leone told NY1. “I’m so sorry.”

“She was a sweetheart. Full of life,” another customer, Frank Petralia, told WABC at a vigil last week.

“We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident involving a TD colleague,” a TD Bank spokesperson told CNN. “Our thoughts are with our colleague, her family and all those affected.”

Kenny, the detectives’ chief, described her as “a productive, beautiful member of society.” “This is, from all indications, a person that was very family orientated, very work orientated … And unfortunately this horrific event happened to her.”

“Katie was a very happy person. She always kept to herself … many people can say that she left behind a beautiful legacy in the hearts of so many people. She was someone who always put others before herself,” Yasira Suarez told CNN affiliate WCBS.

“You took an angel.”

In a joint statement, New York City Council member Kayla Santosuosso, state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and New York State Assembly member-elect Chris McCreight called Mohassib a “mentally disturbed man” “who was discharged from the military on psychiatric grounds.”

“Troublingly though, at the time of the attack, he was a DOE employee, serving as a teacher’s aide in a public school,” the statement read. Mohassib’s background “raises serious questions about how he came to be employed in a local public school and warrants a full investigation into the circumstances of his hiring and continued employment.”

Mohassib working for a school is an “atrocity on its own,” state Sen. Stephen Chan told WABC.

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CNN’s Karina Tsui contributed to this report.