NYPD

Random Subway Slasher Victims Required 36 Stitches, 2 Life-Saving Surgeries: DA

The Bayside man attacked a bakery customer days before back-to-back subway slashings, the district attorney said

NBC Universal, Inc.

The subway slasher arrested over the weekend for a pair of unprovoked attacks that left his victims needing 36 stitches and two life-saving surgeries also struck at a bakery days prior, going after a man with a nail-embedded board, a criminal complaint says.

Donny Ubiera, 32, faces charges of attempted murder, assault and other crimes in a string of unprovoked attacks throughout Queens that sent three different victims to the hospital in the span of four days, District Attorney Melinda Katz said Monday.

The Queens man hunted by police last week for two back-to-back knife attacks along the 7 line allegedly started his reign of terror days earlier at a bakery. His complaint alleges Ubiera approached the shop Wednesday morning near Corona holding "a board with a nail protruding from it in one hand and a rock in the other."

Yelling threats outside the bakery, Ubiera is accused chasing after a man, who tried jumping behind a counter for safety, and striking him with the board. The district attorney said the board made contact with the man's head and he required treatment at a nearby hospital.

Ubiera would strike again two days later, during the Friday morning commute, this time with a knife, the complaint claims. He's accused of approaching a 62-year-old man waiting to board a train at the Queens Plaza station and slashing him without provocation.

Katz said the man tried to raise his arms in defense but took lacerations to his face and hands. It took 36 stiches to close the man's wounds, she added.

NYPD

The third attack would come the next morning, around 7 a.m., on another 7 train platform at the 74 Street-Broadway station in Jackson Heights, according to police. This time Ubiera allegedly came up to a group waiting for a train and slashed a 55-year-old man in the neck.

The complaint says Ubiera's final victim required two life-saving surgeries to repair the puncture wound.

Ubiera was finally picked up by detectives before the end of the weekend after recognizing the man from surveillance images released after the second train attack.

"As alleged, the defendant began his three days of terror by violently
attacking a man inside a bakery, before going on a rampage inside the transit system and repeatedly stabbing two straphangers without provocation over the course of two days," Katz said.

Ubiera, of Bayside, faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted of the alleged crimes. Attorney information for the man was not immediately known.

Contact Us