Orsolya Gaal: NYC mom stabbed 60 TIMES, dumped in duffel bag on upscale ...

The woman whose body was discovered stuffed in a blood-filled duffel bag in Queens early Saturday morning has been identified as married mother-of-two 51-year-old Orsolya Gaal. A local resident was the first to stumble across the grisly scene. Noticing the blood, they dialed dispatchers at around 8:11 a.m. But police didn’t arrive to the scene until a second pedestrian opened the bag, found a mangled body packed in a fetal position and dialled 911. Detectives are now investigating the gruesome find, which was made by two different local residents near a popular walking path on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills, on a section of street that cuts through a local park. Cops said a blood trail from the blood-soaked bag led them to a side door at Gaal’s house, located in a gated community on Juno Street a half mile from where her body was found. They made an emergency entrance into the residence.

Once inside, officers came across Gaal’s 13-year-old son, alone in the house’s top floor. When questioned by officers, the child said that he lived in the house with his mother, and that his father and older brother were away traveling. The teen added that he did not know where his mom was. A neighbor told the Post that the younger son was seen being taken away in handcuffs. After the youth’s questioning, cops determined he had no knowledge of the crime, and the child was subsequently released.

Gaal’s husband, identified by neighbors as Howard Klein, was reportedly traveling out of state with the couple’s eldest son, aged 17. Twitter posts from Klein published earlier this week indicate he was travelling, as well. Early Saturday morning, in a since-deleted tweet, Klein wrote that he and his son had landed in Portland, Oregon, and that they had plans to head to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the businessman received his undergraduate degree in 1990, according to his LinkedIn. Neighbours said he wanted his son to go to the same school as him. 

Klein in a since-deleted tweet he wrote the morning of his wife’s murder, “Just landed Portland, OR before evaluating Ann Arbor again with my 17-year old son.” Police told the Daily News that Klein and his son had been made aware of Gaal’s death and were on their way back to New York. The Daily News had previously reported that police, while honing in on the family’s home, had been investigating the possibility that a male relative killed Gaal, citing law enforcement sources at the time. When reached by the Post via phone, Klein said he was ‘in the middle of a terrible experience’ and was readying to fly back to New York.  ‘[My son] Leo is safe. Thank God [my son] is safe,’ he said of the 13-year-old. He goes on to say, ‘There are concerns about our safety. Our lives are at risk.’ The father and son who were travelling are no longer considered persons of interest in the case.

According to Gaal’s Facebook page, she attended Budapest Business School College of International Management and Business, and likely has family in Hungary. Several photos posted by Gaal show the woman with the family’s dog and trips to Hungary, Croatia, China and Guatemala. Posts also show the mother speaking in Hungarian. During Gaal’s final hours Friday night, she had gone out with friends. Authorities are combing through video and pulling receipts from the places she went to. Law enforcement said, “She knew the people she was out with. We’re talking to them. We also have to figure out, did she meet some mysterious stranger along the way?” The last time she was seen alive was by neighbours in her backyard as she was letting her dog out before she went out for a night on the town with friends. 

The NYPD said Sunday that surveillance footage from the area captured “an unknown individual” dragging a wheeled duffel bag from the direction of Gaal’s home. The hockey bag containing her corpse was discovered about four hours after the person appeared on the footage. Police believe the hockey bag is from Orsolya Gaal home.  The person who killed a mother of two left a haunting message to her husband using her cell phone writing, “Your whole family is next.” PIX11 cites sources who say the killer also told Howard: ‘Your wife sent me to jail some years ago. I’m back’.

Police said they previously responded to a 911 call at the house after Klein reported his wife missing May 29, 2020. The husband later told the cops his wife had been found. The couple’s older son also went missing in 2004 but was later found, too, the sources said. It was unclear if Klein and the boys were at home Sunday or if he and his oldest son had yet been questioned by police from the Forest Hills stationhouse. A man who may have been Klein answered the door at the house Sunday but declined comment to The Post.