Joseph Baldi
deceased American serial killer
Joseph Baldi (January 16, 1941 – October 17, 2009), known as The Queens Creeper, was an American serial killer who, from 1970 to 1972, stabbed four women and girls to death in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York City. His case, along with those of Charles Yukl and Ricardo Caputo, garnered notoriety due to the fact that Baldi had been erroneously released after he was deemed mentally ill, allowing him to claim more victims. For these crimes, he was found guilty and sentenced to a 25-year-to-life sentence at Sing Sing, which he served until his death in 2009.
Biography
Little is known of Baldi's background. Born on January 16, 1941, in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, he became a petty criminal from a young age, frequently burglarizing various homes. He displayed signs of mental illness, for which he was treated at the Creedmoor State Hospital between April 1962 and January 1967. While there, he studied carpentry in the institution's workshop.
Murder of Areti Koularmanis
On September 19, 1970, Baldi was searching for an apartment, choosing one at 144-96 88th Avenue in Jamaica. After going into a back alley and climbing through the window, he found himself in the bedroom of 23-year-old Greek-Canadian Areti Koularmanis, who was visiting her husband's parents together with her children. To prevent her from screaming, Baldi took out a knife and stabbed her in the throat, causing Koularmanis to stagger out of the room and wake her husband, before collapsing on the floor.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Baldi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.