Murder Suspect Says 'Voices' Made Him Kill Queens Nurse: Report

SPRINGFIELD, QUEENS -- Less than a week after he was arrested for raping and holding a woman hostage in California, a suspected serial killer told the New York Daily News he remembered another murder: It was across the country in Queens, and 'voices' made him do it.

Danueal Drayton, 27, of New Haven, Connecticut, told the newspaper from a Los Angeles jail Tuesday he recalled strangling Samantha Stewart, a 29-year-old nurse he met on Tinder, in her Springfield Gardens home on July 17 after the two went on a date. But he didn't want to do it.

“I really liked her," Drayton told the Daily News. "I didn’t want to kill her. They told me she had to die.”

Police arrived at a North Hollywood apartment on July 26 prepared to bust Drayton for Stewart's murder, but ended up arresting him for an entirely new crime when they allegedly found him in the midst of holding another woman hostage.

After he allegedly strangled Stewart to death, Drayton told the Daily News he used her credit card to buy a one-way ticket to California, where he met the 28-year-old woman during an Uber ride in Los Angeles.

Drayton pleaded not guilty on Monday to raping and attempted to murder the woman, charges that would carry a sentence of 23 years to life if convicted.

But after his arrest, Drayton allegedly confessed to police that he did murder six other women: One in Connecticut, one in the Bronx, one in Suffolk County, one in either Queens or Nassau County and possibly another in California.

Drayton allegedly told both police and the Daily News that his body made him commit the murders, claiming to suffer from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

"I'm a passenger in my own body,” he told the news outlet.

But NYPD Chief Of Detectives Dermot Shea said despite Drayton speaking about his supposed murders, police so far "have not been able to verify a single homicide that he has mentioned" and match it up with an open case.

"We have a lot of work to do," Shea said. "He has made statements alluding to his participation in other crimes, including other homicides. Everything has to be vetted."

Shea declined to comment on Drayton's mental state, but said police were alarmed to learn of his long history of arrests, most recently for allegedly trying to choke his girlfriend in Long Island on June 30.

The Connecticut man spent years before that in and out of prisons in his home state on charges of strangulation, unlawful restraint, and violating protective orders, court records show.

"The course of conduct of this individual, his history, his pedigree, what he had been arrested for in the past, and what we knew he did now was the source of alarm," Shea said.

But Shea also noted that no other sex crime victims of Drayton have come forward, despite a public call to do so from the NYPD.

"I think you can look at that two ways," Shea said. "I don't want there to be other victims, and I think that's good news, but if there are other victims...we do need to fully investigate those and get people the help they deserve."

Lead photo via NYPD