Lower Manhattan Has First Murder In Two-Plus Years

A woman on her way to work in Lower Manhattan early yesterday was fatally stabbed by a man she may have had a restraining order against, police officials said.

The woman, Karen Allende, 40, of the Bronx, was across from Battery Park at about 6:30 a.m. when a man approached her from behind, police said. The man made several statements before stabbing her repeatedly. She was taken to New York Downtown hospital in critical condition, and later pronounced dead, police said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the attack appeared to have originated with a domestic dispute.

Police were interrogating one man about the attack, whom they called a "person of interest" with a criminal history, but no arrests had been made as of yesterday evening. Allende was carrying a restraining order when she was attacked.

Allende had been an underwriting associate at the Chubb Insurance Company at 55 Water St. since 2000, a company spokesman, Mark Schussel, said.

The murder was the first in at least two years in the 1st Precinct, which comprises the Wall Street and TriBeCa sections of Manhattan. The area usually sees a preponderance of grand larcenies — for the year there have been about 1,007 as of September 10, according to Compstat reports — but rarely violent crime.