Her husband reported her missing after she went for a midnight walk and didn’t return, police sources said Monday.
Orsolya Gaal’s husband Howard Klein contacted 911 at about 7:21 a.m. on May 29, 2020, to report his wife missing, sources said to The Post.
Sources said Klein, 53, told the 911 operator his wife wasn’t at their Queens home on Juno Street. Sources claim he phoned back 30 minutes later to report she’d been recovered.
The strange occurrence adds to the mystery surrounding Gaal’s death Saturday morning. Investigators have yet to designate a suspect or even a person of interest in her horrible death.
What we know about Gaal’s death thus far:
- Her kids, aged 17 and 13, spent Friday afternoon in her backyard before going out with friends in Manhattan that night, police sources said. A neighbour who observed Gaal, her boys, and Klein in the yard characterised them as a “normal family.”
- Klein and his oldest son were in Oregon for a college tour on Friday and Saturday. The couple’s 13-year-old son was at his mother’s house in Queens, and authorities think he stayed there all day Friday and Saturday.
- She returned home sometime after midnight on Friday or Saturday, and her assailant allegedly stabbed her 60 times in the neck, body and left arm before packing her in a black Bauer hockey duffel bag similar to one used by a child. Gaal died from “sharp force wounds” to her neck, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner stated Monday, declaring her death a murder.
- Because there was no trace of a break-in, investigators believe the murderer knew Gaal and that the assault was personal and directed for her.
- After packing Gaal’s mutilated remains into the duffel bag, the culprit carried it through the calm neighbourhood, leaving a blood trail behind.
- In the early morning hours of Saturday, a mysterious individual was seen lugging the duffel bag along a sidewalk near Gaal’s house.
- The corpse of Gaal was found in a bag at 8 a.m. between Metropolitan Avenue and the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Glenn Van Nostrand, 51, said he first mistook the big sack for a mannequin. With his camera, he went inside and found a woman’s waist in black ankle-length pants.
- Later that morning, authorities located Gaal’s 13-year-old son on the top level. He informed detectives he lived there but didn’t know where his mother was. He was arrested and questioned before being released later in the day.
- Klein, the proprietor of a lithium-ion battery advice company, said police he got a threatening text message from his wife’s phone following her death, according to WPIX.
- When contacted Saturday, Klein claimed he was ready to board a trip to New York and that his family was in danger. “Our safety is in doubt,” Klein stated. “We are in danger.”
Since returning to New York, Klein has been in contact with cops and is staying elsewhere, sources said. - Detectives are scrutinising receipts and security video to monitor Gaal’s activities and determine whether she met a “mysterious stranger” the night before her death, according to police sources. “It’s a mystery,” an NYPD source told the Post on Sunday. “Now we have to piece together what she did.”
- Since the murder, police have been stationed outside the residence, which is still taped off. An iMac computer covered in a black plastic bag was seen being removed from the residence by plain-clothes investigators Monday afternoon.
“Everyone is on edge because a murderer is out there,” neighbour Nick Bais said.
“The police-crime unit mobile laboratory was blinking all night. Nobody slept.