By Jonathan Schuppe
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN WEST — Guests at the Essex House, where a guest was stabbed to death Saturday, say they’ve received no information from management, and are instead relying on news reports to find out what happened.
Some guests said they knew nothing about the murder, allegedly committed by a housekeeping manager, until hearing about it from a far-off relative or friend.
Harriet Ratner of Los Angeles first heard the news Saturday night while watching television in the back of a cab. When she got back to the hotel on Central Park South, workers told her they weren’t allowed to talk about it. A friend in California called and filled her in.
“I understand that the employees are just protecting the hotel, but I found it kind of amusing that I would have to have a long distance call (to learn more about the attack),” Ratner said.
Behind her, staff of the president of Tanzania unloaded suitcases in preparation of his visit for this week's UN General Assembly.
The housekeeping manager, Derrick Praileau, 29, of the Bronx, allegedly strangled Andree Bejjani, a 44-year-old Lebanese investment-firm executive, then stabbed her in back of the neck after slipping into her condo Saturday morning. He has been charged with second-degree murder.
A spokesperson for Jumeirah, the Dubai-based chain that owns the Essex House, said the company would not comment other than to express condolences for the victim’s family and to say that the hotel was cooperating with investigators.
Inside the hotel Monday, guests came and went as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
“I haven’t noticed anything different or anything,” said Gozde Carmiteli, who is from Turkey but lives in one of the hotel’s condos. “No one is freaking out inside.”
A guest from Vienna who gave only her first name, Christina, said she arrived on Saturday, saw the place swarming with cops, and asked what was going on. She was told to talk to a manager, who provided no information. She learned what happened from television the next morning.
She said she was an Essex House regular and did not feel unsafe. She planned to remain at the hotel until she left town on Wednesday. “It’s tragic, but it could happen anywhere,” she said.
Ratner said she asked a couple workers in the dining room this morning about Praileau this morning and they told her he seemed like “a perfectly ordinary man.”
“The people who work in the hotel seem to be as shocked as everyone else.”
