NYPD detectives tracked down the man accused of murdering his party planner boyfriend in Hell’s Kitchen by following purchases he made using his dead lover’s credit card. In the Vermont town of Manchester they cuffed Justin Waller with help from local police. The 31-year-old will be arraigned on Monday on charges of brutally murdering John Lea, ten years his senior.
Police discovered Lea’s underwear-clad corpse on January 21 under a pile of clothing in his midtown apartment. His throat had been slashed. Lea, an events planner for the security industry, had allowed Waller to crash with him since they met at the Mid City West gym two weeks earlier, but police say neither was happy with the arrangement. Lea wanted the freeloader to pay rent or go, but the younger man wanted to keep his accommodations, gratis. “The dispute was over this guy not paying any rent,” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman told the NY Times. “He moved in and was not paying anything.” Wounds on the victim’s hands indicated that there had been a struggle before the fatal knife stab was delivered.
Detectives, who started looking for the house guest when they found the body, noticed charges on the dead man's credit card for a trip to Vermont; a car service had been purchased along with snacks: “eggs and bananas and things like that.” When they found out Waller was staying at a friend’s apartment in Manchester, the suspected killer agreed to meet them at the local police department and confessed. “He admitted to them that he had, in fact, had an altercation with Mr. Lea and killed him, and I believe he admitted to stabbing him,” said Sergeant Hall of the local police force. Waller is currently being held in Vermont on $500,000 bail, reported the NY Daily News.
