Randy Santos Indicted For Killing 4 Men In Chinatown

CHINATOWN, NY — Randy Santos was indicted for murdering four men in Chinatown and attempting murder two others, the Manhattan District Attorney announced Monday.

Santos, 24, was charged for the attacks on five homeless men while they were sleeping that left four men dead and one badly hurt Oct. 5 in Chinatown, the District Attorney's office said.

About one week earlier, Santos injured another man sleeping in Chelsea after hitting him with some type of stick and attempting to throw him into the river. Cops tied Santos to that attack in the days following the murders in Chinatown.

"There is perhaps no population more vulnerable to violence than the growing number of unsheltered New Yorkers who lack a safe place to sleep," District Attorney Cy Vance said in a statement.

After 1:30 a.m. Oct. 5, Santos attacked the men sleeping outside beginning at 17 East Broadway, where he struck and killed Anthony Manson in the head seven times with a metal bar, according to prosecutors.

Across the street, he struck three people several times and walked away, returning minutes later to continue hitting them, prosectors said. That second attack killed Nazario A. Vazquez Villegas and a man who still has not been identified, and badly injured another.

On the Bowery, Santos walked up to Chuen Kok, the fourth person to die, and hit him in the head with the same metal bar, prosecutors said.

Santos pleaded not guilty on Monday in court, the New York Daily News reported.

His lawyer, Arnold Levine, plans to pursue a psychiatric defense, the newspaper reported.

The killings earlier this month shook the neighborhood, drawing mourners to memorials in the days after the attacks. Local leaders renewed calls for more supportive housing.

Neighbors recalled going to church with Kok, 83, in recent years, and Manson, 49, was revealed to be a writer who wrote on his blog on a laptop in Columbus Park. Villegas, 55, was remembered by his daughter as a "marvelous person" who "fell on hard times." The fourth man has still not been identified.

District Attorney Vance added the men could be further honored "by delivering secure housing to all New Yorkers."