Kenol Baptiste: Haitian migrant charged for stabbing two roommates before deportation hearing
HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK: A Haitian immigrant is suspected of attempting to kill his two roommates in a Hudson Valley apartment building while he waits for a federal deportation hearing.
The 30-year-old Kenol Baptiste is accused of stabbing the two men on Monday, April 1 in and around the apartment complex where he was lodging in Middletown, New York. Police responded to the Ruth Court apartments after receiving a report of a stabbing.
Kenol Baptiste faces several charges
Officers discovered one man dead inside a building and another man critically hurt while he lay outside on a sidewalk, according to the Times-Herald Record.
After being taken to the adjacent Garnet Health Medical Center, the second victim died from his wounds during surgery.
Shortly after the stabbings, Baptiste was apprehended by a police K-9 team in a wooded area close to the apartment.
Baptiste was also charged with misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon in addition to second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter, both felonies. No explanation for the killings' motivation was given right away.
Reportedly acquaintances, the alleged murderer and his two victims—who spoke Creole and were also from Haiti—had lived in the apartment together for less than a year.
John Ewanciw, the chief of Middletown Police, told Mid-Hudson News, “In follow-up with members of the community, we are learning that this group of individuals moved in there about a year ago.”
The names of the victims were withheld until their families were notified. Authorities in the area are curious about Baptiste's initial entry into the nation.
Baptiste entered the country approximately eight months ago, according to Ewanciw, and authorities are "still trying to track back how, where, when."
At the time of the stabbings, according to Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus, Baptiste was awaiting federal immigration proceedings. Neuhaus also attributed the horrific deaths to the Biden administration.
“This is a failure on all levels of the federal government,” Neuhaus stated to News12 Hudson Valley. “It was one of the most brutal murders that some law enforcement is reporting to us that they’ve seen.”
Kenol Baptiste expected to appear in court on April 12
Baptiste is expected to appear in court on Friday, April 12, and is currently being held at the Orange County Jail. Neuhaus filed multiple lawsuits against NYC Mayor Eric Adams in the spring of last year following the transportation of multiple buses carrying migrants from the city to hotels in Orange County.
According to the county executive, in May 2023, Adams sent 82 migrants—all single men—to hotels in nearby Newburgh to reduce the tension caused by the city's migrant crisis.
US veterans who had been staying at the Wyndham Crossroads Hotel and Ramada were reportedly forced to leave when the men were moved up from Manhattan.
The New York Post reported that immigrants from secret midnight flights to Stewart International Airport in New Windsor had also arrived in the Hudson Valley region after being sent to Westchester County Airport by the Biden administration.
