A Brooklyn woman who told police that home invaders stabbed her father to death and gravely injured her sister on Thursday has been arrested for the carrying out the violent act herself, according to police.
A high-ranking NYPD source confirmed that the daughter behind the attack at a Bensonhurst home on 17th Avenue allegedly made statements to detectives indicating she made up the home invasion story. Authorities initially said the two sisters (22 and 19 years old) were both injured: the elder one with stab wounds to her hands and the younger one with stab wounds on her body.
Their 61-year-old father, Carlo Secondino, died from multiple stab wounds, according to a senior official at the scene. The teenage sister, Liana, continues to fight for her life at Maimonides Medical Center.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
Law enforcement officials were initially looking for two suspects wearing all black and ski masks, but later said the attack was a domestic violence situation. The elder daughter, identified by police as Nikki Secondino, was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon after her web of lies started to quickly unravel.
The aspiring model-turned-accused killer was escorted out of the Brooklyn stationhouse later in the evening. It was not immediately clear if the cuts she had on her hands were self-inflicted or not.
One neighbor who did not wish to be identified said the elder daughter came banging on her door, asking her to open it. At the same time, that neighbor said they could hear the father yelling for someone to call 911, and also said she heard screams and the sound of bodies slamming against the wall.
Local
She added that she opened the door, and what she saw scared her so much that she slammed the door shut.
"I saw the blood in the hallway and that's when I got shaken up. I saw the blood in the hallway and closed it," the neighbor said.
Neighbors told NBC New York that police officers had visited the apartment in the past, responding to calls about fights between family members.
An investigation is ongoing.
