'I May Have Killed Someone': Drifter Charged in Upper East Side Murder

“I think I may have killed someone last night,” he told detectives, according to court documents.

At the same time, about 2 miles north, investigators were trying to figure out how Kenneth Savinski, a 64-year-old antiques dealer, wound up dead in his Upper East Side apartment — strangled, with his throat slit.

On Saturday, Scott was charged with killing Savinski, emptying the man’s jewelry box, taking his cash and credit cards, and going on a shopping spree before walking into the Midtown North precinct house in Manhattan on Thursday.

Detectives say the two men had met Tuesday night and that Savinski brought Scott home for what he believed would be a “romantic liaison,” the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.

Instead, according to court documents, Scott choked Savinski, bashed him on the head and slit his throat, using various throw pillows to try to soak up the blood from Savinski’s wounds.

It is a crime with odd pieces in its puzzle: a well-liked, regular churchgoer, a wanted drifter from Oklahoma and an apparent suicide attempt in Montauk, New York.

How Savinski met Scott, who is wanted in Oklahoma on charges that he molested a 5-year-old boy, remains unclear. Scott said in a statement to police that he had fled to New York “to get away from that case,” according to court documents.

Scott’s court-appointed lawyer, Jessica Horani, said Scott does not remember much of the past few days and suggested that he might have been deliberately drugged.

“I do believe that he needs medical attention,” she said.

To his neighbors, Savinski was a staple of the block, remembered for his regular walks to church and his friendly waves to acquaintances whom he saw along the way.

“He was a kind, respectful, well-mannered man,” said a woman who declined to give her name. “Ask any of the people who live on this block. We’ve all seen him go to and from work, then to church.”

Savinski worked in the antique-selling business, and for a time, owned his own shop, Freedom House Antiques. He relocated that operation from Maryland’s Eastern Shore to New York in 2001.

In recent years, he did business with Nesle Inc., a Long Island City antiquities shop that specializes in light fixtures and wall decorations.

He worked with Nesle until around 2016, said John Harvey, a manager for the company.

On Fridays, Savinksi was often seen loading his car for trips to visit his family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said Charles Franck, who lived on the same block as Savinski.

“I knew Kenny quite well. He was a standup guy,” Franck, 66, said. “He had a dynamic love for everyone in the neighborhood. He went to the church of St. Ignatius Loyola, where I am a Eucharistic minister. We are a community. He would go to church five nights a week and Sundays.”

Scott’s history, on the other hand, seems troubling. According to court papers in Tulsa County, Scott was facing molestation charges there, stemming from accusations in September 2018 that he had forced a co-worker’s 5-year-old son to engage in oral sex.

When detectives sought to question Scott, officials said he rented a car and fled, leaving his job without giving notice.

He was found weeks later in Montauk by local police officers, thousands of miles from where he had first rented the car, according to a court document.

At the time, Scott told the officers that he had driven from Oklahoma to New York and intended to kill himself. The officers discovered a “mechanism” to kill himself in his car, the court paper said, but it was unclear what that mechanism was.

He was taken to a psychiatric hospital on Long Island before being sent back to Oklahoma and given an electronic ankle monitor. He was scheduled to face trial this month on the molestation charges, the district attorney’s office in Tulsa said, but his lawyer had requested a delay. The trial was rescheduled for June.

But then, Scott fled again, removing his ankle monitor before traveling to New York, prosecutors said.

A judge in Tulsa issued a bench warrant for his arrest Jan. 22, after he failed to appear at several court appointments, according to records in Oklahoma.

Scott had apparently been in New York City for several weeks, according to prosecutors in Manhattan, and was staying in hotels and in people’s apartments. He appeared to have little connection to the city.

“He seems to be simply passing through,” said Shira Arnow, a prosecutor in Manhattan.

After using Savinski’s credit cards to buy new clothes and pay for taxi rides, Scott returned to the man’s apartment the night after the killing, prosecutors said. Surveillance video shows Scott arriving and then quickly leaving after noticing police officers.

Scott’s lawyer in Oklahoma, Michael Manning, declined to comment but said he did not expect to represent Scott in New York.

Scott pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and is being held without bail. He is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .