While the seven-year-old girl who was brutally stabbed in an elevator last week remains hospitalized, her accused attacker is apparently proclaiming his innocence.

Mikayla Capers is at New York-Presbyterian, recovering from multiple stab wounds, and her aunt told the Post, “She has not talked about what happened… It is too soon right now.”

Last Sunday, just before 6 p.m., police say Daniel St. Hubert, 27, stabbed Capers and her cousin, Prince Joshua “P.J.” Avitto, 6, in a building elevator at the Boulevard Houses on Schenk Avenue in East New York. Both children, who were headed to get ices, were stabbed repeatedly. P.J. died from his wounds and was mourned at a funeral on Friday.

It’s also believed that St. Hubert is involved in the fatal May 30th stabbing of 18-year-old Tanaya Grant Copeland, also in East New York, and the June 4th stabbing of a man at the West 18th Street subway station in Manhattan. St. Hubert was found, after a huge police manhunt, in Queens on Thursday, scrawling “$ Killzz I will B” with a smiley face on a stop sign. He was carrying a knife.

Daniel St. Hubert in court (AP)

St. Hubert has numerous arrests and was just released on parole on May 23rd, after serving five years for choking his mother. He was transferred to Bellevue Hospital yesterday, and the Daily News reports:

[His sister Judith Perry] said he appeared lucid and only had one thing on his mind — clearing his name.

“I didn’t do it,” he told his sister.

“He’s managing,” said the 29-year-old Perry, who believes the city Department of Correction sent her brother to Bellevue because of his “documented mental illness.”
“He’s hanging on, but he says he can’t take this too long because he knows he’s innocent,” she said.

St. Hubert claimed the guards transporting him to the hospital abused him by banging his head against the wall and tightening the cuffs until they hurt him.

“His hand is swollen,” Perry said. “He doesn’t like the situation he’s in. He feels it’s unfair that they are … judging him guilty without even giving him a fair trial.”

However, police linked him to the crimes after finding his DNA at the crime scene. The Wall Street Journal reported, “The city Office of the Medical Examiner received the knife Sunday and spent about 36 hours processing the DNA—considered to be a fast turnaround, a second law-enforcement official said. The DNA lifted from the knife was uploaded into a state offender registry, the official said. A match was found on Wednesday and turned over to the NYPD.”

And Prince Joshua’s brother, Sharod Jean-Pierre, told the News, “[Hubert’s] still gonna be able to eat, sleep, talk to people. My little brother isn’t going to be able to do that anymore. I want him to stay at Rikers. I want him to suffer.”

h/t – gothamist