Woman pushed onto subway tracks 'never saw' her attacker

NEW YORK • Ms Michelle Alyssa Go loved New York City, and travelling. She had celebrated her 40th birthday in December with a vacation in the Maldives, a neighbour said, and looked forward to work-related business trips.

Last Saturday morning, Ms Go left her apartment on the Upper West Side and was about to step onto a subway in Times Square when a 61-year-old man pushed her from behind, police said, shoving her to her death in front of a southbound R train.

Screams echoed through the station, a witness said.

The killing sent shock waves through a city already on edge nearly two years into a pandemic.

Subway use is half what it was before March 2020, and riders who have pleaded for help from elected officials complain regularly about encounters with people who appear homeless and mentally ill.

In another, less virus-conscious year, Ms Go's zest for travel might have taken her away from New York over a three-day holiday weekend, said Ms Olivia Henderson, her next-door neighbour in a West 72nd Street building.

"She was incredibly smart," Ms Henderson said, choking back tears as she spoke on Sunday.

"She was just the person who did everything right."

Reserved but friendly, Ms Go renewed the lease on her apartment during the pandemic rather than leave, Ms Henderson said, committed to the city she had considered home after completing a master degree in business administration at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Ms Go earned an undergraduate degree from UCLA and had worked in mergers and acquisitions for Deloitte Consulting, according to her LinkedIn page.

A managing director at Deloitte, Mr Jonathan Gandal, said the company was "doing all we can to support her family and friends during this terribly painful time".

While working in finance, she had also volunteered for 10 years for the New York Junior League, coaching women and children on nutrition with a goal of stabilising at-risk and homeless families, the league's president, Ms Dayna Barlow Cassidy, said in a statement.

While on a committee that focused on empowering young people, Ms Go prepared job candidates for interviews, helped fine-tune resumes and offered tips on personal finance.

After the attack, Mr Simon Martial, who served two prison terms for robbing taxi drivers while threatening use of a gun, rode a train to Lower Manhattan, where he told officers at the Canal Street station that he had pushed a woman onto the tracks, police said.

Mr Martial, who police said was homeless, was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital on Sunday, but he is expected to be arraigned on murder charges, law enforcement officials said.

Mr Martial was previously found unfit to stand trial following a psychiatric evaluation in 2019, after he was charged with drug possession near Washington Square Park, prosecutors said.

Just before last Saturday's attack, Ms Maria Coste-Weber, who lives near Hudson Yards, was standing on the Times Square subway platform, waiting for a train to take her to a boxing class.

She said she saw a man moving quickly towards the tracks, arms outstretched.

"He started running with both of his hands in front of him, like, tackling," Ms Coste-Weber said. "But it was so fast, nobody realised what was going on before it was too late." Ms Go was standing near a group of women, preparing to board the train as it pulled into the station. "She had her back to this crazy person," Ms Coste-Weber said. "She never saw anything."

NYTIMES