From the Daily News:
A dispute over unpaid rent ended in horror Tuesday when a Queens landlord hacked his female tenant to death with a machete and then used the blade to end his life, police said.
Hettie Patterson’s screams drew the attention of neighbors as her landlord, Eulith Reid, attacked her with the machete in the backyard of his subdivided home on 143rd St. in Jamaica.
He struck at her head with deadly force.
A teenage boy who lives in a second-floor apartment in the home heard her cries, and ran outside to help, wearing only boxer shorts and a T-shirt.
But Reid, bloody blade in hand, rushed at the teen, and the boy quickly hopped a fence and called 911 from a neighbor’s home, his mother said, refusing to give her name.
Police showed up to the home about 11:30 a.m. They found a gruesome scene: Patterson, 48, a mother of four grown children who lived in a basement apartment, was sprawled out in the backyard, near death. Reid, 61, was found in his first-floor apartment. He had slit his throat and his wrists, police said. The machete was found near his body.
Both died at Jamaica Hospital, police said.
