Police arrested a Massapequa man in connection with the murder of a Great Neck teaching aide from Merrick and told a news conference Saturday that the two men were involved in a relationship at the time of the fatal stabbing.
Det. Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick, the head of the Nassau County Police Department Homicide Squad, said Ryan Lindquist, 21, allegedly stabbed Evan Grabelsky, 32, more than 100 times at his Merrick home. Fitzpatrick said Grabelsky lived there with his parents, who were away at a dinner party and came home to find their son murdered at the landing of the house.
Grabelsky and Lindquist met over social media, knew each other for two years and were in a romantic relationship for a year, Fitzpatrick said.
“The two of them were down in that bedroom,” Fitzpatrick said. “The attack started down there, in the bedroom, and then escalated throughout the house.”
“It appears he was trying to get away,” Fitzpatrick added.
Fitzpatrick said multiple injuries on Lindquist’s hands, video surveillance, telephone conversations, text messaging, and other factors led them to Lindquist, who now faces a second-degree murder charge. Parents on both sides were not aware of the relationship, he also said.
Mark Alter, an attorney for Lindquist, was not immediately available for comment on Monday morning.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Grabelsky had been a special education paraprofessional at Great Neck North High School since September 2015.
He assisted with daily instruction for students with severe autism spectrum disorder, helped create special strategies for reinforcing skills, and monitored student performance, his LinkedIn profile says.
Grabelsky also worked for three years at the Bellmore-based Camp Iconic, a children’s summer camp, first as a division head and later a camp director.
Before that he was a residence hall director in Union College and a school counseling intern at New Hyde Park Memorial High School and Mepham High School in Bellmore, according to his LinkedIn profile.
