95-year-old woman murdered her roommate, 89, at Brooklyn nursing home, prosecutors say

A Brooklyn judge Wednesday ordered a 95-year-old woman held without bail on charges that she murdered her nursing home roommate with part of a wheelchair.

Prosecutors said Galina Smirnova fatally beat 89-year-old Nina Kravtsov on Sunday in their room at the Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Coney Island. They said a nurse conducting their rounds discovered Kravtsov — a Holocaust survivor, according to her family — bloodied and unconscious just before 10 p.m. She was later declared dead from blunt force trauma at a local hospital, according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.

The women were the room’s only occupants and Smirnova was admitted to the facility last Friday, Assistant DA Ari Rottenberg said at her arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court. He said Smirnova has dementia, but Smirnova’s lawyer asked the judge to hold off on ordering her a psychiatric exam to give the defense more time to collect information.

“We need an opportunity to consult, gather medical history and speak to our client further,” attorney Erin Darcy of the nonprofit Legal Aid Society said.

Darcy requested that Smirnova, “given her age,” be held in the city correction department's wing at Bellevue Hospital, but Judge Orville Reynolds said he couldn’t guarantee her placement there. He ordered her held without bail, citing the “nature of the charges and the evidence,” and asked that she receive medical care.

Smirnova, who was also charged with criminal weapons possession in the case, listened quietly to the proceedings through a headset as an interpreter translated for her. She sat in a wheelchair with her left hand cuffed to the armrest.

Darcy declined further comment outside the courtroom. Smirnova is due back in court Friday.

According to Rottenberg, a nursing assistant checked Smirnova and Kravtsov’s room shortly before 9 p.m. on Sunday and saw Kravtsov asleep in her bed with nothing amiss. About an hour later, the assistant returned to the room and found blood everywhere and Kravtsov unresponsive in her bed with severe head injuries, he said. Smirnova was allegedly washing her hands in the dorm’s bathroom with blood on her gown and legs.

A wheelchair in the room had been taken apart, with both leg attachments removed, Rottenberg added. One of them was covered in blood on the floor and the other had been thrown out of the window and was lying on the ground below, he said.

Kravtsov had facial, head and skull fractures and was taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where she was pronounced dead, according to a criminal complaint filed by the DA’s office. Prosecutors said Smirnova was taken to Coney Island Hospital for evaluation and was released into the custody of the NYPD’s 60th Precinct.

“You try to do the best that you can and you make sure your mom has ‘round-the-clock care,” Randy Zelin, an attorney representing Kravtsov’s family, said in an interview. “How does something like this happen? It is inconceivable, it is incomprehensible, it is beyond words.”

Zelin said Kravtsov survived the Holocaust and has one daughter, who is so upset by her mother's killing she “can barely speak.” He blamed the nursing home for putting Smirnova alone in a room with Kravtsov, saying patients with dementia can sometimes experience bouts of rage.

The facility has not responded to requests for comment on Kravtsov’s death.

City Councilmember Justin Brannan of Brooklyn, who represents Coney Island, demanded answers about the incident.

“This is a heartbreaking and almost unbelievable tragedy,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “The fact that this happened inside a nursing home is deeply disturbing and raises urgent questions about supervision, staffing, and accountability at Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.”

Police data through Sept. 14 shows homicides were up by two in the 60th Precinct, where Kravtsov was killed, compared to the same period last year. Felony assaults in the precinct rose 20%.

This story has been updated with additional information.