William Blount was arrested in 2022 in Long Island City three nights after he attacked a woman with a hammer at the Queens Plaza subway station. Photo by Dean Moses
April 3, 2025 By Bill Parry
A homeless man from Manhattan was convicted in Queens Supreme Court Wednesday for brutally assaulting a 58-year-old woman with a hammer at the Queens Plaza subway station in Long Island City in 2022.
William Blount, 60, whose last known address was in a shelter at the Radisson Hotel on Williams Street in the Financial District, was found guilty of assault in the first degree and other related crimes following a six-week jury trial. Blount was acquitted of attempted murder charges but still faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
According to the charges and trial testimony, at around 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 24, the victim was heading home from her job as a researcher at the city’s Health Department when she was followed into the subway station by Blount, who was walking with a black cane.
As the 58-year-old woman descended the staircase, Blount began to kick the woman down the stairs, struck her head with a hammer thirteen times, snatched the victim’s multicolored tote bag from her arm, and fled the station.
Police released the terrifying footage that captured the victim walking down a flight of steps at an entrance to the Queens Plaza subway station before she was kicked in the back by Blount.
**Warning: Graphic content, viewer discretion is advised**
Police from the 108th Precinct in Long Island City found the victim in a pool of blood in the stairwell. EMS responded to the crime scene and rushed the victim to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where she was treated for multiple skull fractures and underwent an emergency bilateral craniectomy to repair her skull with titanium mesh. She also sustained a broken finger and other injuries.
Investigators tracked Blount’s movements following the bloody attack using video surveillance, which showed him carrying the victim’s bag as he walked from Queens Plaza to a relative’s house on 12th Street in Long Island City.
Blount was arrested on Feb. 27, 2022. The following day, police executed a search warrant at the relative’s home on 12th Street, where they recovered a hammer, a black cane, and the victim’s tote bag. Further testing revealed a mixture of the defendant’s and the victim’s DNA on the hammer and a mixture of contributors of DNA, including Blount’s, on the black cane.
“This defendant repeatedly bashed an innocent straphanger in the head with a hammer,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “The victim — who was simply trying to use the subway as millions of New Yorkers do every day — suffered multiple skull fractures.”
The six-week trial began on Feb. 24, 2025. Queens Supreme Court Justice John Zoll, who presided at trial, set the defendant’s sentencing date for May 7, at which time Blount faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
“Thanks to the extraordinary intervention by emergency medical personnel, who reduced the swelling of the woman’s brain, she was able to recuperate and reclaim some quality of life,” Katz said. “I thank my prosecutors and NYPD officers who helped achieve justice in this case.”
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