Woman stabbed to death at Staten Island public housing development, NYPD says

Police were looking for suspects on Wednesday after a woman was fatally stabbed on Tuesday night at a public housing complex on Staten Island, according to the NYPD.

Officials with the department said 43-year-old Jennira Roundtree was involved in an altercation with a group of women outside her building at NYCHA’s West Brighton Houses on the borough’s North Shore around 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

She was stabbed in the chest multiple times and pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center, police said.

NYPD officials said they were still investigating what the fight was about and who was involved. They did not have descriptions of any suspects.

Roundtree had four children, worked for a security company and was a caretaker for her friends in the building, according to one of her neighbors, a woman, who asked to remain anonymous because no arrests have been announced in the case.

“She was basically the mom of everyone. You needed something, you could go to her,” the woman said.

Murders fell significantly last year in the NYPD’s 120th Precinct, where Tuesday’s stabbing occurred, police data shows. They were down over 83% through the middle of December, compared to the same period in 2023.

No murders were reported in the precinct from the start of this year through Jan. 5, according to the data.

This is a developing story based on preliminary information from police and has been updated. Charles Lane contributed reporting.