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Subway Swipe Seller Fatally Stabbed in Harlem Train Station, Police Say

By  Rachelle Blidner and Aidan Gardiner | March 17, 2016 8:28am 

 A man was fatally stabbed in the West 116th Street station Wednesday night, police said.
A man was fatally stabbed in the West 116th Street station Wednesday night, police said.
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DNAinfo/Rachelle Blidner

HARLEM — A man was fatally stabbed in a subway station Wednesday night by the father of a woman he'd been trying to sell a MetroCard swipe, police said.

Herbert Burgess, 53, was illegally selling swipes in a Malcolm X Boulevard station about 8:55 p.m. when a woman asked to buy one, but then changed her mind, an NYPD spokesman said.

She left the station and Burgess followed her to the street, where she called to her father Julio Velazquez, police said.

Velazquez, 48, chased the seller back into the station and stabbed Burgess in the torso, police said.

Burgess, who lived at 802 Fairmount Avenue in The Bronx, managed to hop onto a southbound 2 train, where police found him, NYPD officials said.

One police official said the stabbing took place in the station at 116th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard before the victim took the train to the 110th Street station, where police found him.

Another official, however, said he was both stabbed and discovered in the 110th Street station. 

The victim was pronounced dead at St. Luke's Hospital, police said.

The woman was taken in for questioning, but was not expected to be arrested, an NYPD spokesman said.

Velazquez, who was arrested in 2013 on a weapons possession charge, fled the scene and wasn't immediately arrested, police said.

He is about 5-feet-6-inches tall and 180 pounds with black hair and brown eyes, police said.

Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).