The man suspected of fatally stabbing a friendly 41-year-old corporate events planner was a "down on his luck" freeloader who'd overstayed his welcome with the victim, friends say. Co-workers of John Lea became worried on Wednesday when he didn't show up for work at the New York Society of Security Analysts, and yesterday they led police to his apartment. The door was locked, so cops broke in via the fire escape and found Lea's body under a pile of clothes, wearing only his underwear, with his throat slashed, a massive gash on his head, and "several defensive wounds" on his hands.
Investigators are searching for the man who had been living with Lea for the past couple months. Friends identified him as Justin Waller, and say Lea met him at a gym and decided to let Waller stay in his apartment for what was supposed to be a brief period. "A few days turned into a few weeks," says Lea's co-worker, Michael Herz, to the Daily News. "A few weeks turned into a month. A month turned into two. This weekend is when John was going to tell him he had to leave. He was an extremely giving person and, apparently, that's what ultimately did him in." A police source tells the Times the two were "known to argue."
Neighbors describe Waller as mean-spirited. "He creeped me out. We didn't like having this guy hanging out," said neighbor Chuck Graves. "I wanted to say to John: 'What are you doing with him? Why did you let him into your life?' But it wasn't my place." Another neighbor reports seeing Waller outside the West 46th Street building on Wednesday, sitting silently on the stoop with a number of suitcases.
