After Killing Wife, Harlem Man Said He'd Done 'Something Bad': Police

HARLEM, NY — The man accused of stabbing his elderly wife to death in their Harlem apartment on Friday confessed to his niece that he had done "something bad," according to police and court documents.

Geraldo Balbuena, 68, is accused of killing his wife Lanilda Nuez, 79, on Friday inside their apartment on West 144th Street near Riverside Drive.

Around 10 p.m. that night, Balbuena called his niece and alluded to the murder, saying he planned to kill himself, an NYPD detective told prosecutors. Balbuena added that he would leave the door open to the second-floor apartment that they shared, prosecutors say.

About 20 minutes later, an officer responding to a 911 call arrived at the building and received no answer when he approached the apartment. The officer then mounted a fire escape that ran outside the apartment, and saw Balbuena inside "holding a large wood-handled knife," court records say.

Inside the apartment, the officer found Nuez lying unresponsive on the bedroom floor in a pool of blood, authorities said. She was rushed to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital and underwent CPR for about half an hour but never regained consciousness, police said. She was pronounced dead around 11:15 p.m., with multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen.

The court documents were first reported by the New York Post.

Balbuena was arrested Saturday and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He was arraigned in court later that day, and is next due to appear on Thursday.

Nuez, known to friends as "China," had been known for holding court on her stoop and "always making everyone laugh," a relative told the Post. Balbuena may have attacked her following an argument over a house they owned, the Post reported.