LENOX HILL — The 25-year-old man wanted for a series of attacks on Asian women in Manhattan hung himself Monday in an elevator shaft, leaving a suicide note admitting to all crimes and a bag with a hammer at his feet, police said.
Tyrelle Shaw, who was identified Thursday by police as the man who attacked at least four Asian women who he said had rejected his advances, was found hanging in a Lenox Hill elevator shaft, less than a week after writing a blog that sketched out his suicide plan in graphic detail, officials said.
"Inform NYPD they could stop searching for me because I’m going to commit suicide," Shaw wrote June 17. "Actually, I’ve already tied a noose to the bottom of an elevator and I’m going to wait until someone pushes a button so that its [sic] not considered a practical suicide. This is actually murder."
Shaw, who grew up in Brownsville was homeless and estranged from family which made it hard to find him, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.
"He was turning off his phone, he was turning off whatever other devices he had, so he was a little tough to look for. We began looking for him in the 19th precinct, in the 5th, the entire east side of Manhattan,” Boyce said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Shaw, who has 10 prior arrests, but none for assault, was found Monday in an elevator shaft of 766 Madison Ave., near East 66th Street, and pronounced dead at the scene, an NYPD spokesman said.
His cellphone and a suicide note admitting to all the crimes was recovered near his body, Boyce said. Police believe the hammer found at the scene was the object he was using to strike his victims.
In each of the apparently random attacks, Shaw struck women in the face with a bag containing a heavy object — a ploy he called "The Nose Game," police said.
All of the women were treated and released from area hospitals, police said.
On his blog, Shaw said he attacked the women because they and 1,500 other Asian women had rejected his romantic overtures.
"In less than 350 days, I talked to nearly 1,500 Asian Women and none of them took time out of their day to say hello. I became furious. I never agreed with violence, but I knew the only way I could overcome that sense of rejection-would start by assaulting the Women that carelessly rejected me," he wrote in a post titled "Why I Decided to Leave Earth."
Shaw, whose last known address was about four blocks from where he hanged himself, went on to explain that he would eventually be found dead.
"Thank you. I love you," he concluded.
