A maniacal former cop was arrested Saturday for the brutal murder of a young woman who was jogging along a Brooklyn trail last week — and he claimed to have woken up covered in blood with no memory of the heartless assault, police sources told The Post.
Sayed Mohassib, 27 — who currently works as an elementary school educator in Brooklyn despite being discharged from the Marines for psychological reasons — was charged with second-degree murder in the Oct. 30 killing of Katie Suarez, police sources said.
Officers tracked him to his home in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, after filming him leaving the Shore Parkway Greenway around the time Suarez was attacked, the sources said.
Mohassib works as a paraprofessional at PS 200, which is just three blocks from the waterfront promenade overlooking Gravesend Bay.
He told cops during his grilling at the 62nd precinct police station on Saturday that he woke up from a power outage covered in blood and with the murder weapon.
He said he threw the knife in the trash and cops believed the waste was taken to a Staten Island landfill before ending up in a New Jersey landfill.
Mohassib returned to work at the primary school last week, where his colleagues noticed him speaking incoherently and acting erratically. They reported this disturbing behavior to police, although their reports did not ultimately lead to his arrest, sources said.
The alleged killer has a history of mental instability — with his own family calling 911 after threatening to “cut them into pieces,” according to sources.
His mother and sister reported the incident to cops in September 2024, and officers found him in Caesar’s Bay, about a half-mile from where Suarez was killed, the sources said. He was transported to Coney Island Hospital during the incident.
He had worked as a para at a public school before joining the NYPD in 2022, but was only on the force six weeks before leaving to enlist in the Marines.
The Marines released him after deeming him psychologically unfit, and his attempts to join the NYPD just three months after leaving were rejected, the sources said.
Mohassib had shown up at an NYPD station to request reinstatement, appearing disheveled and erratic — and he was taken to Bellevue Hospital the same day, they said.
He was denied any attempt to return to the force. It was at this time that he returned to the Ministry of Education.
Follow the news of New York jogger Katie Suarez, who was stabbed during a race:
The alleged killer and Suarez both went to Brooklyn College at the same time, but it is unclear whether they knew each other.
Detectives have not determined a motive for the attack.
Earlier in the week, investigators collected forensic evidence, including clippings of the victim’s fingernails, to determine whether she had difficulty with her attacker, another source told the Post.
“You can tell it wasn’t a theft because she was left with her jewelry and phone,” the source said. “But you can’t say conclusively that it wasn’t a sexual assault.”
Detectives also took touch DNA samples from the 28-year-old bank teller’s phone and elsewhere, but processing the DNA will take time, the source said.
Suarez was ambushed and stabbed in the neck around 8:15 p.m. after leaving her job at TD Bank and going jogging on the waterfront promenade along Belt Parkway near Bay 17th Street, not far from her Gravesend home, officials said.
Her father found her body collapsed on the path after she failed to meet her parents after her run – and she sent a final message saying she was just five minutes from their agreed meeting point.
She was rushed to hospital, where she was declared brain dead, but was kept on life support so her organs could be harvested and donated.
Suarez was training for a race on Nov. 14 when she was attacked, her mother said.
“She didn’t deserve this,” Yasira Suarez told The Post earlier this week. “Katie was very happy, she was a person who didn’t joke with anyone.
“She was someone who everyone said left a good impression on the hearts of everyone she met. She was the type of person who thought of everyone else before herself.”
South Brooklyn residents were stunned that the man accused of Suarez’s murder worked for the DOE — and lived among them.
“I think he’s a good boy, without conflict with anyone. He smiles, he says hello. His mother is nice,” said Rosa, Mohassib’s neighbor, with a hand clutched to her chest.
“As a father of two, I find it very concerning that he was allowed to be around children,” Fabián, 26, Suarez’s neighbor, told the Post on Saturday. “What kind of education could he give them?
Additional reporting by Tina Moore.
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