In the predawn stillness of February 11, 2011, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 54, a man living in a first-floor apartment on East 27th Street in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, was found stabbed inside his home shortly after the day began to break. Police said he had been knifed numerous times and was pronounced dead at the scene, turning what should have been an ordinary winter morning into the opening moments of a violent chain of events that would ripple far beyond the building’s front door.
Investigators quickly focused on someone close: his stepson, Maksim Gelman. Police said the killing erupted after an argument inside the apartment, sparked when Gelman fought with his mother over using her gray Lexus. When Kuznetsov stepped in, the confrontation turned lethal. By the time officers arrived and recovered a knife from the scene, Gelman had already fled in the car, slipping out into the neighborhood’s streets as word spread that police were searching for him.
As the hours passed, the search intensified into a citywide manhunt. Police linked Gelman to additional attacks that day in nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods, including the fatal stabbing of two women in another apartment, followed by a series of confrontations in which he was accused of stabbing victims during carjackings and then striking and killing a pedestrian with a stolen vehicle. Authorities said the violence continued into the night, with more stabbings, as Gelman moved from one target to the next and the city’s transit system, streets, and homes became the backdrop for an escalating spree.
The manhunt ended the next morning in Manhattan. Riders who had seen reports and photos recognized Gelman on the subway, and moments later a passenger was slashed on a train. Police said Gelman was then subdued and taken into custody at the Times Square subway station, near the exits around 40th Street and 7th Avenue, closing the net after roughly a day of fear and frantic searching.
In the months that followed, the case moved through the courts as prosecutors laid out the scope of the violence and the trail it left behind. Gelman ultimately pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to murder and other charges connected to the spree. At sentencing in January 2012, a judge imposed a term totaling 200 years in prison across multiple counts, describing him in stark terms from the bench. Reports also noted that a separate proceeding remained for the subway assault in Manhattan, while the Brooklyn sentence ensured that the man identified as the sole suspect in Kuznetsov’s killing would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
