Man Charged With Murder After Spitting on Subway Tracks

By spitting on a subway track, a Brooklyn man gave police a reason to hold him long enough to determine that he was wanted as a murder suspect.

Officers busted 33-year-old Euzebelin Abellard for the minor infraction on Thursday because they felt they recognized him as a suspect in a 2015 murder.

While detaining Abellard at the Stillwell Avenue subway platform in Brooklyn, the plainclothes officers used a mobile phone to call up the image of a wanted poster of the suspect in the case, authorities said Friday. The photo of the suspect was the spitting image of Abellard, they decided.

The officers then charged Abellard with second-degree murder in connection with the Nov. 20 death of Jean Claude Bernagene, 51, who was shot multiple times on New York Avenue in Brooklyn.

Abellard was also charged with first-degree criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon.

There was no indication that he had obtained a lawyer who could comment on the charges. 

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