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Dylan Lentini, 19, of W. 41st St. in Manhattan, has been charged with second-degree murder, a felony carrying a potential prison term of 15 to 25 years. He was arraigned in Clarkstown Justice Court and is being held without bail in Rockland County Jail.
Rockland County District Attorney said Lentini will go before a grand jury Friday. He thanked Clarkstown police for swift work and for their collaboration.
Police Chief Michael Sullivan, at a late afternoon press conference, said the investigation is "still active." Police are investigating how the two men knew one another. Sullivan said the suspect told police he lives at the Covenant House homeless shelter in Manhattan, but that has not yet been confirmed.
A neighbor who was smoking on his porch around 1:45 a.m. saw a young man coming from the victim's apartment, screaming "Call 911". Police responded to the call at the multifamily house. They had to break into the apartment. The victim, stabbed multiple times and covered in blood, was already dead.
Sullivan said they found the man who was screaming for help 200 yards from the building, bleeding from lacerations on his hand. He was on foot. Police said they have not recovered a vehicle belonging to Lentini. He was taken to Nyack Hospital for "seven to eight" stitches and escorted back to Clarkstown Police headquarters this afternoon.
Sullivan said there was a bloodied kitchen knife at the crime scene. "It was like a carving knife," said an officer.
Wimbert, a retired tropical fish dealer, lived alone in the top apartment. Sullivan said residents in the two ground floor apartment accounted for and safe. Winbert appears to have been an educator.
Wimbert, who was divorced in 2000, owned Mr. Fish of New York on Route 59 in Nanuet from 1996 to 2004.
He worked at Mount Pleasant Cottage School Union Free Schools in 2011 and 2012.
Tim Englert, a consultant for the solar industry, remembers Wimbert from several years ago. Englert, the former development specialist for the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, was working on documentary films.
Wimbert volunteered for the organization for about three months in 2007. Englert said Wimbert didn't talk about his personal life but he participated in lively discussion, loved the work he was doing, and had hoped his volunteer work might turn into a full-time job.
"He moved on and I never heard from him again," said Englert, "until today. I saw his name in the paper and I knew it was him. What a tragedy."
Englert added that Wimbert did seem to be a lonely man, "an eccentric." But he recalls him fondly because he loved organizing, digitizing, and note collecting materials that Englert eventually used in a series of documentaries about the Palisades Interstate Park Commission.
To read earlier Daily Voice coverage of the stabbing, click here.
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