The U.S. Army vet suspected in the stabbing death of an East Village man outside Manhattan's main post office wrote in a suicide note he "didn't mean to kill him."
Police found the body of Sir'mone McCaulla, 28, in the Philadelphia apartment of his ex-girlfriend Tuesday afternoon. He was in the bathtub with a plastic bag over his head and a TV cable box on his chest, sources told the Daily News. Authorities believe he electrocuted himself.
"Not gonna lie didn't mean to kill him just wanted to stop the threat," McCaulla wrote in the note posted to his MySpace page and published Wednesday on the New York Post's Web site. He said he bumped into Gutierrez, a father of a 1-year-old boy, but tried to move on, but Gutierrez picked a fight with him.
"No one is pushing the issue that he came back towards me and took off his jacket and put his hands up but the paper and his family sayin this man was a saint."
McCaulla wrote about previous times he had been attacked on the street, which put him on edge in the incident with Gutierrez. "when someone is tryin to hurt me I get defensive now sortta like its them or me," he wrote.
The note, entitled, "my statement b4 goodbye," was typed without spell check or punctuation.
"I just wanna say sorry to my daughter that’s heart and my love forever and I will be watching over you," he wrote. "I tried my best to be the best father I can be but it still seemed to go wrong I couldn’t even win at losing."
He said the media was "making me seem like a monster" when he was actually working to become a corrections officer.
"I feel if its hard for me for me to find work out of the army its gonna be 10 times harder if I come out as a felon," he wrote. "to those that supported me I lived my life now it time for me to go Love Sir’mone"
The note was posted 40 minutes before authorities found his body, the New York Times reported.
The stabbing took place on the steps of the James A. Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue, across from Madison Square Garden.
Police said surveillance footage showed the two men bump each other an then continue on their way for several feet before they turned and exchanged words. Gutierrez was then seen readying himself for a fight and then McCaulla stabbed him with "four quick strokes or jabs" in the chest, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters on Tuesday.
McCaulla, who had been stationed in Kuwait, was identified by a police officer who served with him in the U.S. Army Reserves after he saw a photograph of McCaulla snapped by a German tourist.
"Yes, we know he's dead," Madina Jackson, McCaulla's cousin, told the News. "The police told us, came and knocked on our door. "We're just trying to deal with it in our own way. . . . [His mom] is okay. We're just trying to deal with it."
