May 16, 2001 – Police in New York released a photograph of one suspect and a sketch of another Tuesday as the investigation proceeded into the Midtown Manhattan shootings last week that left one St. John resident and two other persons dead and another island resident and a second individual wounded.
The photograph is of Sean Salley, a 19-year-old who has worked in the production end of the music industry. Police said he has an arrest record that includes charges of assault, robbery and weapons possession, in Georgia, Massachusetts, and Brooklyn and Buffalo, N.Y.
New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik appealed for help from the public Tuesday, saying he believed Salley to be "a very violent person" and "someone who's now armed and dangerous."
The police sketch of the second suspect was done from witness descriptions and a videotape of the two assailants recorded on a surveillance camera on a stairway landing of the apartment building where the shootings occurred. Police authorities say the two suspects may be related, The New York Times reported in its Wednesday issue.
The five victims all were shot in the head last Thursday evening in a four-room apartment five stories above the popular Carnegie Delicatessen on Seventh Avenue near West 55th Street. One of those slain was Charles "Trey" Helliwell III, a boating enthusiast who has lived on St. John for about three years. One of the injured was his companion, Rosemond Dane, a 15-year island resident who owns three tourist-oriented shops in Cruz Bay.
The couple and two other visitors were socializing with Jennifer Stahl, a longtime acquaintance of Dane's, when the shootings occurred. The pair had flown up from St. John just that day, with plans to attend the wedding of a cousin of Dane's and to go to a trade show in connection with her gift and jewelry shops.
Dane was admitted to Bellevue Hospital Center for treatment of a wound caused by a single bullet that grazed her ear and entered and exited her collarbone, according to a family member. Under guard while hospitalized, she was released Tuesday, according to St. John sources. Friends and family members have expressed concern for Dane's safety and that of her two teen-age sons and others close to her. The Source has made the editorial decision not to identify any of the family members by name or place of residence, nor to report on her whereabouts, because of security concerns in connection with the crime investigation.
What the New York media are calling the Carnegie Deli Massacre transpired in less than five minutes and 40 seconds — the time elapsed on the surveillance camera videotape between the the men's ascent on the building stairs and their descent, the New York Daily News reported.
According to a New York Post report, police described Salley, an African-American, as 5 feet 9 and 155 pounds, with braided hair and a round scar under his left eye. They said his accomplice is a slim, light-complexioned black man in his 20s, about 5 feet 10 and 145 pounds. Early reports had cited a police description of the two men as having dreadlocks.
FBI agent Robert Lasky in the St. Thomas office said Wednesday that "I can't comment" on whether the FBI has become involved in the investigation. Eric Rivera, media liaison in the FBI regional office in Puerto Rico, said he was not familiar with the case. "We don't usually get involved in murder cases," he said. However, if drugs were a factor, he added, "that would be a different matter."
Stahl a singer and former actress once married to Wendall Callwood, son of Jost Van Dyke entrepreneur "Foxy" Callwood, and a musician friend also were killed. Another of Stahl's visitors that evening, a New York hair stylist, was also wounded.
According to the Times, when the assailants fled the building around 7:30 p.m., Seventh Avenue was full of theater-goers and tourists. Kerik said witnesses who saw the gunmen identified Salley as one of them from a photographic line-up. The Times also said one investigator said Salley's fingerprints were found on the duct tape used to bind some of the victims.
Salley had worked for a time as a music production manager for George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic, also known as the P-Funk All-Stars. The Times quoted a Clinton aide as saying Salley had been fired about a year and a half ago. Police speculated that it was a music connection that brought Salley and Stahl together. She operated a small recording studio in her apartment.
Law-enforcement authorities say Stahl's major source of income was another home-based business, that of supplying high-grade marijuana to a select clientele of people that she knew.
Police would not say Tuesday night whether they believed Salley and/or his accomplice shot the five victims. An earlier Times story quoted a witness account saying Stahl had greeted the unexpected visitors at her door by saying "Sean, what are you doing here today?"
Salley also used several aliases, including "Sean Bishop" and "Jost Sulley," police said.
According to the Times, police said Stahl also maintained an apartment on New York's Upper West Side and had homes on St. John and in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The Times reported that detectives showed the surveillance videotape to someone who called the New York City Crime Stoppers hot line with information on "a man named Sean, a man the caller believed had been involved in the shooting." The caller later picked Salley's photo out of four that he was shown.
"These are two extremely dangerous people who, based on what they've done, are capable of great violence," NYPD Assistant Chief Thomas P. Fahey said. Anyone with information relating to the case can reach the Crime Stoppers line by calling 1-800-577-8477.
