Woman, 95, Allegedly Bludgeons Her 89-Year-Old Roommate of Two Days With Wheelchair Foot Pedal

An elderly woman was washing her blood-soaked hands when her senior living roommate of just two days was found lying on the floor of their shared room — severely thrashed with a metal chair foot pedal. Galina Smirnova, 95, was cuffed on the night of September 14 after allegedly slaying 89-year-old Nina Kravtsov, according to the criminal complaint obtained and reviewed by The New York Sun. Both had been checked on by staffers of the Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on West 29th Street at Coney Island minutes before 9 p.m.In fact, Kravtsov was witnessed “asleep in her bed and nothing in the room was in disarray,” the papers say. But an hour later, staffers returned to their room for a check-in, only to find a horror show. Ms. Smirnova, who is believed to be stricken with dementia, was “washing” her blood-splattered hands in the bathroom sink while the felled Kravtsov was discovered “covered in blood,” having been bludgeoned and with “gash marks on her face and head.” While she was trying to cleanse her hands, the nursing staff noticed that the senior suspect’s gown was soaked red and that she had blood beading down both of her legs. They also noticed that a wheelchair in the room had both foot pedals ripped from it — one of them resting on the floor was “covered in blood,” according to the complaint. The other foot pedal was found tossed out of the third-floor room’s window. Cops rushed Kravtsov to Brooklyn’s NYU Langone Hospital, where, according to the complaint, she would succumb to the blunt force trauma and skull fractures early the next morning. “Our family is in grief,” a relative informed the Sun. Lawyer Randy Zelin, who was retained by Kravtsov’s family, told the Sun that the two residents of Seagate were paired to room together because both “spoke Russian.”Mr. Zelin called it an outrage that the senior facility where Kravtsov had lived for “five or six years” would leave her alone with a woman suffering from dementia.“No one in their right mind would leave a freshly brought over dementia patient alone with another patient,” he said, noting that it was Kravtsov’s room that her alleged killer, Ms. Smirnova, had moved into. “And for these two women, one of whom being a dementia patient, who just got there, leaving them leaving the two of them alone is inconceivable.”Resident-to-resident aggression — a nursing home term — often involves residents with dementia, which can cause those afflicted to become violent.Mr. Zelin confirmed that Kravstov had survived a stroke and had also survived Hitler: She was a Holocaust survivor from Ukraine. “She simply deserved to be cared for and protected” while staying put in New York while her only child relocated to Florida, he said.On Tuesday, after reviewing concerns about the accused killer’s cognitive state, prosecutors formally brought second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon charges against Ms. Smirnova. At her arraignment on Wednesday, where Ms. Smirnova pleaded not guilty, the elderly woman appeared wearing a sweater over a blue nightgown; her hair in long white braids. She was remanded and taken to Bellevue Hospital instead of Rikers Island due to her frail health. Ms. Smirnova’s due back in court on September 19. Meanwhile, the Kravstov family’s attorney blames the Brooklyn senior home for having a hand in the untimely death of the “lovely and wonderful” woman. “Nina should have been in the right place, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Zelin stressed. “She was left completely unprotected, completely exposed, left completely vulnerable, and left to die like an animal.”

Woman, 95, Allegedly Bludgeons Her 89-Year-Old Roommate of Two Days With Wheelchair Foot Pedal

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