Juanita Caballero, a 78-year-old woman known to friends and family as “Jenny,” was a mother of three and grandmother of nine who lived in a Brooklyn, New York, apartment building designated for seniors. A former daughter-in-law remembered the Hispanic mother as a “very happy lady” who was “always smiling, always making everybody laugh.” She was described as a traditional mother, devoted to her children.
In her younger days, she loved to drink beer and dance on the boardwalk at Coney Island. Though she had become hard of hearing and was suffering from dementia in her later years, she was a beloved and harmless member of her community.
Her life ended in an act of shocking violence on January 15, 2021. That day, her son, Stephen Caballero, arrived at her apartment in the Carter G. Woodson Houses, a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) complex in the Brownsville neighborhood, intending to spend the weekend with her. When he entered her sixth-floor apartment, he made a devastating discovery. He found his mother on the floor, brutally murdered. A telephone cord had been wrapped around her neck, and an autopsy later confirmed her cause of death was strangulation. The sight was one that would haunt her son forever. "What I saw is hard to get out of my head, the worst thing anyone could go through," Stephen later said. "I'm broken, totally broken... My mother was brutally murdered."
The investigation into Juanita’s death quickly uncovered a pattern of violence that had been plaguing the senior housing complex for years. Her murder was the third killing of an elderly woman in the building since 2015. The other victims were 82-year-old Myrtle McKenny, who was stabbed in 2015, and 83-year-old Jacolia James, who was stomped on and found with injuries to her head and torso in 2019. Investigators soon focused on a suspect who also lived in the building: 66-year-old Kevin Gavin.
Gavin worked as a handyman in the complex, running errands and doing odd jobs for many of the elderly residents, including all three victims. He had gained their trust and was allowed into their homes. The definitive link to Gavin came after Juanita's murder. He was captured on surveillance video using her stolen debit and benefit cards at multiple locations. When police apprehended him on January 21, 2021, he confessed to killing Juanita and also admitted to the murders of Myrtle McKenny and Jacolia James. He claimed the killings were the result of arguments over money he believed the women owed him. DNA evidence from the scene of Jacolia James's murder also matched Gavin.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez called the murders “acts of shocking depravity and cruelty.” He stated that Gavin “exploited elderly women who trusted him, gained access to their homes, and murdered them in a series of brutal attacks that shocked the conscience.” The killings sent a wave of fear through the residents of the Carter G. Woodson Houses and led to demands from families for increased security measures.
In April 2026, Kevin Gavin pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder for the killings of Juanita Caballero, Jacolia James, and Myrtle McKenny. The plea deal avoided a trial but brought a measure of finality to the families who had waited years for justice. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, ensuring he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
For Juanita’s family, the legal outcome could not erase the pain of their loss. They remembered a vibrant woman who was cherished by her family and friends. In a final tribute, her family planned to scatter her ashes in the ocean off Coney Island, the place where she had spent so many happy hours dancing. Her son Stephen spoke of the need for greater protection for the vulnerable, saying, "Old people should not have to go through that type of violence.”
