A 31-year-old Yonkers man is facing a second-degree murder charge after police say he fatally stabbed his 61-year-old father inside their East Yonkers home Monday morning, then fled on foot along a local trail before detectives tracked him down hours later. Rami Ahmad was taken into custody near Kingston Avenue and Palmer Road just after 11 a.m., ending a search that stretched across several Yonkers neighborhoods.
According to Daily Voice, officers responded to 102 Smart Ave. around 7:45 a.m. Monday and found Hekmat Ahmad suffering from apparent stab wounds. Officers and medical personnel performed CPR at the scene before he was rushed to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where he was pronounced dead. The property sits in the Dunwoodie section of East Yonkers, a stretch of the city known mostly for single-family homes and quiet residential streets, according to Zillow.
Suspect Fled Before Officers Arrived
Police say Rami Ahmad attacked his father inside the elder Ahmad's residence and left before officers got there, per the Daily Voice report. That set off an extensive search involving patrol officers, the Emergency Service Unit, detectives, and neighboring law enforcement agencies, the outlet reported.
Investigators determined Ahmad had been traveling north along the South County Trailway, according to the Hudson Valley Press. Detectives caught up with him near Kingston Avenue and Palmer Road around 11:13 a.m. and took him into custody without incident. Arresting detectives recovered a folding knife from Ahmad during the arrest, the same outlet reported.
Major Case Squad Leads Investigation
The homicide investigation is being led by detectives from the Yonkers Police Department's Major Case Squad alongside the Crime Scene Unit, per the Hudson Valley Press account. The Westchester County District Attorney's Office is prosecuting the case, according to Daily Voice.
Ahmad has been charged with second-degree murder, a Class A-I felony under New York Penal Law § 125.25 that carries a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life up to 25 years to life in state prison upon conviction, according to the Marwaha Law Group. Following initial police processing, felony murder charges in Westchester County move from local municipal courts to Westchester County Court in White Plains for grand jury indictment and trial, per the Law Offices of Jason Goldman.
A Rare but Not Unprecedented Case in Yonkers
Monday's stabbing echoes a previous domestic parricide in the city. In August 2023, Yonkers police arrested 47-year-old August Velasco for fatally attacking his 76-year-old father, Jose Raul Velasco, with a meat cleaver at their Scarsdale Road home, according to Patch. Both cases involved adult sons using deadly weapons against elderly fathers inside family residences, though such fatal intra-family violence remains rare in the city.
Yonkers police also expanded their technological toolkit earlier this year with a citywide Drone as First Responder program, which gives patrol officers and detectives aerial support during emergency searches and perimeter containment, as Hoodline previously reported. It remains unclear what tactical resources, if any, were used during the search for Ahmad along the trail.
What led to the alleged attack is not yet known, and it is unclear whether Ahmad's mental fitness will become an issue as the case proceeds. Under New York Criminal Procedure Law Article 730, defendants in Westchester murder prosecutions whose competency is questioned undergo court-ordered psychiatric evaluations that can temporarily suspend criminal proceedings, a process Hoodline has detailed in a Mount Vernon hammer case. Similar competency delays have played out in other Westchester homicide prosecutions, including a Yonkers case that recently ended in a guilty plea after a three-year psychiatric delay.
