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Ex-Con Arrested for Stabbing Man to Death with Ice Pick, Police Say

By Katie Honan | June 23, 2017 9:47am
 Norbert Williams, 52, was arrested Wednesday for a brutal murder early Sunday inside the Hammel Houses, police said.
Norbert Williams, 52, was arrested Wednesday for a brutal murder early Sunday inside the Hammel Houses, police said.
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NYPD

​ROCKAWAY BEACH — An ex-con who brutally stabbed a man to death with an ice pick inside an housing complex stairwell early Sunday has been caught, police said.

Norbert Williams, 52, was arrested Wednesday morning in Brooklyn by the NYPD's violent felony squad, less than a week after he killed Joseph Smart, 47, inside a first floor stairwell of the Hammel Houses at 82-01 Beach Channel Drive, according to police. 

He then took Smart's cellphone and smashed it with a hammer, throwing it out into the garbage along with the ice pick and his blood-stained clothes, according to the criminal complaint.

Williams was convicted of criminally negligent homicide in Brooklyn in 1986, but only spent a year behind bars, according to police and state Department of Corrections records online.

He was arraigned on murder, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon charges on Thursday, according to the district attorney's office. He was ordered held without bail and is due back in court July 6.

Information on his lawyer was not immediately available.