Months before the Bronx man was brutally shot by responding police after he reportedly fatally stabbed four relatives at a Far Rockaway house on Sunday, he had refused treatment for serious mental health problems that his family had discovered. This is according to his aunt and cousin.
Lillian McKoy, a resident of the Bronx, claimed that her nephew Courtney Gordon, the 38-year-old police officer suspected of carrying out a gruesome domestic slaying at 467 Beach 22nd St., had shown concerning behavior earlier in the year, prompting his sister and mother to seek treatment from mental health specialists.
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In the main room of her Eastchester apartment, McKoy stated, “But he, in turn, reversed it and began to tell them they’re the ones that need help, he is fine,” she added, “He refused to go.”
Gordon was discovered leaving the Far Rockaway residence with bags when police arrived in response to a 911 call at around five in the morning on Sunday, and when they got close to him, he stabbed two of them with knives, according to the NYPD. Gordon was then shot by a cop, and according to the police, he subsequently passed away from his wounds.
As of early Monday afternoon, the victims’ identities remained unknown. An NYPD spokesperson said that among them was a 61-year-old woman who had multiple stab wounds and was still in critical condition at a hospital. There were also four deceased individuals: an 11-year-old girl, a 12-year-old boy, a 44-year-old woman, and a man in his 30s.
According to the police union on Sunday, the hurt officers were taken to a hospital and were anticipated to make a full recovery.
According to McKoy, Gordon spent many months staying at her flat last year, and she occasionally worried for her safety around her often-agitated nephew. “I just did not like his demeanor, the way he looked at me and the attitude,” she noted. “If someone resents you that much, you don’t know what will happen.”
She said that because Gordon’s mother, her sister, was already residing there, she had welcomed Gordon into her house. McKoy said that he was having trouble finding lodging after his marriage disintegrated a few years ago, and that he had been living elsewhere with his wife and small children.
After a while, McKoy said she noticed some troubling behaviors from her nephew, including his tendency to snap at family members, his habit of walking off work during the workday, and his preference for listening to music about guns and killing.
She said, “It was not the same person I knew when he just [came] from Jamaica,” remembering how Gordon had looked “jolly” and normal when he had first arrived in New York some fifteen years prior.
Gordon married, had a kid, and was employed at a BJ’s shop around five years ago, according to McCoy. She mentioned that he would frequently go to his mother with his son, as well as take part in get-togethers like barbecues.
Although the District Attorney’s office was unable to comment on the case because it was sealed in 2021, police stated that Gordon had previously been arrested in the Bronx for strangulation related to domestic abuse. Gordon’s ex-wife was not readily reachable by the news media.
According to McKoy, she requested Gordon to vacate her apartment after he insisted that she take down the surveillance cameras she had put in her house.
After that, he moved about and resided in homeless shelters until Christine Watson, his father’s aunt, offered to take him in at her Far Rockaway house, according to McKoy. Gordon had been living at Watson’s house for almost two weeks when a little kid called 911 on Sunday morning, claiming that her cousin was “killing her family.”
McKoy said that she learned of the murders after a panicked phone call from her niece, Gordon’s sister.
“I was just devastated,” Adding that the event struck close to home because her nephew had only moved in with her a few weeks prior, McKoy spoke, “He was living here … and then he went there, and they were helping him, and this is what happened.”
Lillian’s son, Sean McKoy, claimed that throughout the months that they shared a home in Eastchester, he would make vain attempts to reason with Gordon. However, he never imagined that his cousin would be the prime suspect in a double killing.
“I’ve known him for so long that I wouldn’t think that he would resort to that kind of violence,” he said, adding that the killings shook him.
Working with persons with mental problems, his mother Lillian advised families to reach out and support loved ones exhibiting severe behavioral changes.
“Do it, because you never know what tomorrow’s [going to] hold for you,” she noted. “Countless families [are] in mourning, being destroyed, because their loved one did not get the help they need.”
