Josh Margolin , Jamie Schram and Dan MacLeod
The New York Post
NEW YORK — A struggling Staten Island salesman who peddles clothing from a duffel bag was being questioned early today in the serial slayings of three Brooklyn store owners, law-enforcement sources said.
Authorities discovered a .22-caliber handgun - the type of used in all three murders - in the suspect’s girlfriend’s apartment, sources told The Post. Investigators will perform ballistics tests to see if it’s the murder weapon.
The mustachioed “John Doe Duffel Bag” - who was caught on video carrying the bag near the scene of the latest killing - surrendered to cops yesterday and was taken to the 67th Precinct station house in East Flatbush.
He was still being questioned early this morning.
Sources said the cash-strapped salesman goes door-to-door hawking clothes to Brooklyn businesses, and his occupation explains why he was spotted on surveillance video near at least one of the murder scenes.
He lives on Clove Road in the Silver Lake section. One neighbor, who has known him for two decades, called him “sneaky.”
“He’s always up to no good. He doesn’t want anybody to know where he’s going,” he said, asking not to be identified.
Sources said the man has prior arrests in Pennsylvania in 2001 for burglary, harassment and stalking.
“Doe Duffel” was seen walking by Rahmatollah Vahidipour’s She She Boutique on Flatbush Avenue around the time the 78-year-old owner was shot three times Friday.
“He was in the vicinity . . . . roughly at the time we believe the murder took place,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
A similar-looking man also was spotted on grainy surveillance footage near a Bensonhurst store whose owner Isaac Kadare, 59, was gunned down and stabbed on Aug 2.
Kadare’s widow said her sister believes the man came into the store about a week before the crime and acted bizarrely.
“When my sister saw his picture, she said that could be the man that was acting strange,” she said.
Hanza Mohamed, the widow of first victim Mohamed Gebeli, said the man looked familiar.
“I think I do know him,” said Mohamed, whose husband was killed on July 6 in his Bay Ridge clothing store.
Cops had “Doe Duffel” under surveillance before he turned himself in, sources said.
Each slaying occurred as the lone business owners - all Middle Eastern - were closing up shop.
“It may be significant, it may not, but in all three cases, the victim’s head was covered either by cardboard or clothing of some sort,” said Kelly.
All three men worked in businesses that contained the number 8 in the address, and cops have been investigating that link.
The FBI has been working with the NYPD to catch the killer.
Sources said they are proceeding with extreme caution to avoid a hasty arrest and a shaky criminal case, as they have with Etan Patz’s alleged killer, Pedro Hernandez.
“Given all that went on with the Etan Patz thing, they’re trying to do more investigative work up front, like profiling and telephone records,” before naming a suspect, a law-enforcement source said.
Copyright 2012 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.