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Body Found in Construction Site – A Homicide

CROWN HEIGHTS [CHI] — John Howells, a local handyman and longtime Crown Heights resident, was found dead by a group of Yeshiva Bochurim in an abandoned construction site nearly two weeks ago, now police have acknowledged that it was a brutal homicide.

According to the medical examiner the victim was stabbed multiple times by two or more assailants, and was killed more than 10 days before he was found in the construction site on the corner of Crown and Troy.

This is the same location a 10-year-old Jewish boy was mugged at gunpoint just one month ago, and a more recently the murder of Yevgeniy Shamray two nights ago.

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Howells, a daily congregant at a Utica Avenue church, was stabbed to death on Dec. 9 with a knife or other sharp object. According to police reports, his cell phone was also stolen.

According to family members, he had no involvement with criminals or organized crime. The senior pastor of the church, Rev. B.T. McCollum, and other church members have been helping the family in a search for the perpetrator.

Howells is survived by his mother, Dr. Joann Howells, a former employee of the Intensive Supervision Program at Kings County Supreme Court, and two brothers, Robert and Richard.

The victim’s sister-in-law, Sandy Howells, told CrownHeights.info “He didn’t just lay down and die, and he didn’t OD. He was murdered…stabbed and beaten to death”.

Richard Howells, the victim’s brother, told us that “John was killed by 2 or more persons with multiple stab wounds, the date of death was the day after Thanksgiving or that weekend. He worked as a handyman for St. Anthony’s Baptist Church on Utica Ave in Brooklyn. A memorial service will be held in Clearwater, FL as soon as the arrangements can be made.”

Anyone with information is requested to contact Det. Thomas of the 71st Precinct detective squad, at 718-735-0514.

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36 Comments

  • THE POLICE

    THE BOCHURIM FOUND THE GUY NOT THE POLICE, WHAT KIND OF JOB ARE THE POLICE DOING ANYWAY ?? ITS A JOKE ON THE POLICE THEY CAN’T DO THEIR JOB !!!

  • tipshim

    I love CHelm heights where the dead are living, and the living are dying. You see we tried to keep the news out of our neighborhood. So our neighborhood became news. Are you satisfied community council goers, or do we need more crime. Chad Vesholom. Enough with your stupidity, and give the living a chance to live. Because the dying are getting their chance at their dying. So wake up and smell the corpses!!!

  • Build!!!!!!

    DRIZIN!!!! build up till the corner!! Why do we have empty merder lots? This goes for mr winter as well! build up prtesident and albany!!!!!!!

  • construction site??

    there is no constuction going on at that site-unfortunately.it would be a safer area if it was bein used for something!!

  • police

    are u there?? hello knock knock we don’t see u.. WHY ARE PEOPLE WHO AREN’T EVEN TRAINED AS POLICE SOLVING THE CRIMES..SHOMRIM..SHOMRON..I DONT EVEN KNOW THE NAMES BUT HELL COPS APPARENTLY U NEED A HIGHER EDUCATION OR A CROWN HEIGHTS EDUCATION!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • concerned mother/resident in CH

    @ tipshim & nuuuu:
    Just how long u been waitin t’use ur clever lit’l quips?
    It is not clever to be callous or cold when someone dies. Just cuz the poor man wasn’t Jewish doesn’t make his violent death any less tragic – or scary! Crime has seriously escalated recently & we should be ever vigilant. It’s good that the bochrim reported the body – too bad they didn’t check on the man a week earlier when they 1st saw him laying there! (They didn’t know then that he wasn’t a Jew!)

  • Move it Mayor

    Mayor Doomburg better shift more money from his arts contributions and bike lanes to police protection fast.

  • get better

    They can’t trace his cell phone? The 71st precinct needs to replace some of their detectives.

  • Renegade

    I’ll admit it, I was wrong.

    I defended the cops when this story first broke assuming it was a homeless guy or an od. I see I was wrong…

  • Hakoras Hatov

    To number 4:
    Perhaps you should thank Drizin for what he has already done for Crown Heights by building up part of the lot.

  • Mordechai Yisroel

    We need 2 go 2 Williamsburg & learn from the Hungarians how 2 make crime not happen. Yes I know in Williburg there were 2 recent stories that happened but how often does that happen the blacks & Hispanics don’t mess over there. Y can’t Crown Heights learn from them how 2 take care of crime. A story like what happened Monday night @ troy & Crown would never happen in Williburg. So its time the Shmira & shomrim get 2gether stop with the political junk be bachdus go 2 Williburg learn how they do it, & apply that 2 CH otherwise the Blacks & hispanics r going 2 be Matzliach in what they want 2 do. Boro Park is the same thing like Willburg same Mentality we must learn from them get these blacks afraid of Us they we will be Matzliach. The robberies & everything will stop if we show them who we are. Nothing wrong with learning from others. By the way by the Hungarians when u do something wrong u pay big time they hunt them down. So lets all be Yidden & learn from each other. Yidden have 2 help each other. Lets go 2 Williburg & learn from them right away. Can’t wait. But these things with the Blacks have been going 4 more then 35 years so its time 2 put it 2 a stop.

  • to concerned mother/resident in CH

    I don’t see callousness in their comments, only bitter sarcastic cynicism, which is appropriate, when your vaad hakohol and rabonim who can’t even agree about what time it is, unite in stupidity and tell us to hush up when people are being murdered.

  • please explain

    i dont understnd. they must have known he was missing. so why didnt the police check around with Dogs for this man. thats a no brainer or am asking to much from the police

  • Former Crown Heights-er

    The point of the story is that everyone needs to be more watchful and keep your children and yourselves safe. Be more aware, safety in numbers. These are terrible tragedies that happened. But having hatred and pointing fingers doesn’t help. You can sit and read articles or you can do something.

    More GLOBALLY, outside of CH we try to work on our loshon horah and ahavas yisroel. Something that may be trivial to the average Joe, but there is no way things can get better when there is such outright hatred amongst each other.

  • a worried resident

    for all the police bashers out there, the body was FOUND by bochurim who i dont even know why they would be going into such a place in the first place (thats between them and god what they were planning on doing) the cops are not looking for bodies on a daily basis they are looking for crime that is actually happening whether they are doing a good job at that is a diff subject but searching such areas is not something every detective will do bc 1.they most likely did not know where he last was, 2 his cell phone was stolen so no way to trace it, 3. from the details of the story it seems he does not have alot of family in the direct area, so give the cops a break finding the body is a huge step in the right direction since hopefully they can maybe find prints or the object/s used in the murder, either way the force needs to step things up in the area as there is obviously something going on around here.

  • Soo sooo sad.

    My sincerest condolences to the Howell family. May G-d rest his soul, and may you only know from happiness from here on in. Good luck with finding the perps, and may you be able to find the strength to move on.

  • mom

    Just another example of the lawlessness that affects us here on a daily basis. But of course, we have to keep quiet, mustn’t dare criticize, not the lazy, useless, & invisible police or their puppets, the CHJCC.

    One question: didn’t anyone notice Mr. Howells was missing for 10 days? Not his family nor his employers? Friends? Fellow worshippers? That’s very sad.

  • Former resident from around the corner

    Just a simple solution: demolish that area so it’s not a magnet for criminals. It’s not costly and needs to be done at some point anyway. It should be a city mandate on the owner.

    So sad…

  • Student and Friend

    I think we need to learn from Former Crown-Heights-er above.
    I think there are really great people everywhere, and sadly, some that are not so great. But we cannot throw away an entire race of people because sadly some are bad. What about the good black people, and the great Mexican people, who through all the hardships and the bigotry become great. They seek to help their community. But when we exclude them, not only do we lose team members, we create enemies.
    There are so many special people in all communities, that if we came together in peace, instead of in war, we would solve this problem so much quicker, and with a much larger army; for all of us have so much good inside. And starting a club that’s kind and makes people feel better, is a lot more appealing than one that gives you a horrible life.

  • Fight Back

    FACTS:

    The bocherim were roaming in a closed private piece of property, thats where he was found.

    The cops are doing their job,(except when they are not) but they dont go looking for dead people in your back yard.

    Construction site. HAHA> more like boarded up dump yard, maybe that old car still has the driver in it.

    President and albany is not zushes.

    We need to take back our streets. More lights, more cameras, more of the great Shomrim, More street walking so the streets are safer, we should not hide in our homes.

    We should be like the MACABI.

  • STOP Boomberg

    We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to stop what Bloomberg is doing and go back to what guliani did. Simple.

  • Facts...

    President and Albany is finally building – and no it doesn’t belong to Wilhelm.
    Drizin would be thanked more if he did more for the community, i.e., given a small parcel of the land to ULY for playground space for the kids or much needed classroom space. He didn’t build for the benefit of the community. He build for the benefit of his pocket.
    That blue ‘fence’ is dangerous to everyone that passes the corner of Troy/Crown. There should be a demand by CHJCC to have the owner (Drizin?) take it down immediately. When he is ready to build, he can put it up again. Meanwhile all sorts of criminal activity goes on behind and OUR KIDS are walking there alone like it is perfectly safe.
    My condolences to the Howell family.

  • typical

    to number 30.
    You sound like one of those people who like counting (and spending) other people’s money.
    If Drizin was in this for his own pocket, he would have done the sensible thing and hired Corcoran to market the apartments to Yuppies (as many others have done) and probably would have made much more money.
    Get a life.

  • Hank

    I read an obit that said he was born in 1965. That must be an old photo. He looks too young in that photo to be 45.

    I remember seeing someone in the neighborhood that looked like him but older. He was slender, about 6′ tall, had a ponytail and wore construction clothes. I wonder if that’s the same guy?

  • So Ashamed

    This person was my brother-in-laws brother. The angry and prejudices I see in some on these comments to me are digusting. John Howells, a human being, a person from this earth was brutually stabbed and beaten in you neighborhood. Don’t you care that he was a person and had family? His brother tried repeatly to reach him by phone and couldn’t get up with him. Finally he contacted the church that John attended and they got involved. After alot of phone calling my brother in law learned his brother was laying in a morgue and that is why he didn’t reach him. John was starting a job that day, but he never made it. He laid in that nasty filthy place for almost 12 days before anyone cared enough to check on him, or call the police because he was there? I feel sorry for your community. I pray that you all learn to come together and make your neighborhood safe. A 10 year old Jewish boy was robbed and mugged in that very area. Does anyone care? John had a wonderful kind heart, and the comments that some have written are an insult to the family. You didn’t know John, and sure don’t know his family. He was a good man, and didn’t deserve to be murdered this way. Shame on those of you who don’t care because he wasn’t Jewish. Who cares? He was a person. My jewish friends are appalled at what they have read on this page. To those who offered condolences, thank you. The family appreciates the kind words. Please lets catch the people responsible for committing these horrible acts and put them away. It could be your child, husband, mother or father next.

  • skinnylittlesister

    Just stumbled upon this horrible news. John was my half brother with whom I lost touch more than 20 years ago. We knew eachother for only a few years time but we had alot of laughs and heart to heart talks. I felt lucky that I got to know a some sense what its like to have a big brother. I was a little girl who, in his presence, felt safe in this dangerous world for the first time. I looked up to John and I loved him. He was a good person and a stand up guy. He was kind, caring, giving and sweet on the inside and brave and tough on the outside. He had more than his share of ups and downs, as did I and I was lucky to have had the chance to know him. His terrible fate aches my heart and brings many tears. I’ll never forget him. May God bless and rest his soul and fond memories comfort his mother and family.