“Train Ripper A” is in custody, several police sources told the Post on Saturday night.
The madman wielding a knife is wanted in a horrific subway wave that left two homeless people dead and two others cut along the A train line that was captured in Upper Manhattan, the sources said.
His shoes were still stained with the blood of his victims when he was taken into custody – and he was still in possession of the bloody knife, a source added.
The suspect still named was in custody at the 34th Precinct in Washington Heights, the sources said.
The bloodshed sparked a clamor for safer subways, and NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea responded by announcing a “wave” of 500 additional police officers for the department’s Traffic Department to be deployed across the city immediately.
The spree started on Friday morning, not far from where the alleged stabber was arrested, officials said.
At 11:30 am, a 67-year-old man was stabbed while pushing his walker along the south platform at A 181st Street train station in Washington Heights.
“I will kill you!” he told police that his attacker shouted, according to sources. He was stabbed in the right knee and in the left buttocks; although he required surgery, he is expected to survive the attack.
This attack is believed to be related to three subsequent attacks.
Twelve hours later, at 11:29 pm on Friday, a man was found stabbed to death, but still lying in his seat on an A train at Mott Avenue station in Far Rockaway.
He suffered knife wounds to his neck and torso and was pronounced dead at the scene.
About two hours later, at 1:15 am on Saturday, a 44-year-old woman was found dead, again in a pool of blood, under her seat on the subway, inside an A train at 207th Street station in Inwood.
She was stabbed all over the body.
Then, at 1:28 am on Saturday, a 43-year-old man was randomly stabbed while sleeping on a stairway from train station A on West 181st Street.
He staggered to a nearby bank on West 181st Street, but collapsed before entering the foyer, police said.
The victim is being treated at a local hospital for four back punctures and is in stable condition.
The 44-year-old woman was taken to New York Presbyterian-Allen Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to authorities.
It is the worst wave of stabbing on the subway since June 2006, when a homeless serial killer injured four people in a 13-hour commotion on trains in Harlem and Rockefeller Center. All his victims survived.
And it is the worst mass violence against the homeless since 2019, when four homeless men were beaten to death in their sleep one night in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
Blasio’s mayor recently dismissed the public concerns of New York commissioner Dermot Shea over a recent wave of attacks on the subway, which included a hook placed on the tracks.
Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello