NEW YORK, November 2, 2026 — Katie Suarez, 28, was stabbed twice in the neck while running along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn on Friday evening and remains on life support at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, with police still searching for her attacker. The New York Post reports she has been declared brain dead.
The attack on a dark waterfront path with no nearby cameras has set off a familiar calculation for New Yorkers who run after work: how much safety to trade for the training miles. Strategically, the case now sits at the intersection of a manhunt, a lighting and surveillance fight, and a marathon weekend the victim was preparing for.
The Final Minutes Before the Attack
Suarez finished work at a TD Bank branch in the Bay Parkway shopping plaza in Gravesend around 6:30 p.m. and met her mother near the bank, a family ritual after her shift, sources told the New York Post. Her father usually joined them but was running late that night.
She had already changed into running gear and handed her work clothes to her mother before setting off alone, jogging westbound toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The route she took starts at Bay Parkway and ends at 14th Avenue and Bay 8th Street, according to the Post.
Her father caught up with her mother and phoned Suarez at about 8 p.m. to arrange where to meet. She told him she was roughly half a mile away, a five-minute jog for her, and nothing in the call raised concern, sources said. When she did not appear, he called again and got no answer. The parents split up to search, and her father found her near Bay 17th Street and Shore Parkway, stabbed on both the right and left side of her neck, and pleaded with a passer-by to call 911.
Investigators believe the attack was random. Her pink cell phone and jewelry were still with her, sources said, and nothing pointed to a robbery or sex-crime motive. She managed to run about 100 feet after being stabbed before collapsing, and images from the scene showed blood on a nearby guardrail.
Police Investigation and Witness Appeal
The NYPD has released a photograph of Suarez and asked anyone who saw her on Friday, October 30, between 7:56 p.m. and 8:12 p.m. near the eastbound bike path along the Belt Parkway between Bay 8 Street and Bay 17 Street to come forward. No suspect has been publicly identified, no motive established and no arrest announced.
Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York on Sunday that Suarez was in grave condition. He also appealed to drivers who were on the nearby Belt Parkway that evening to report anything they witnessed.
The physical setting is working against investigators. Law enforcement sources say there were no cameras nearby and the area was extremely dark. Police have deployed K-9 units, scuba teams, drones and a Crime Stoppers truck in the search, and a reward of up to $10,000 is offered for information leading to the attacker’s identification and apprehension.
Tips can go to the NYPD Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X at @NYPDTips. Spanish speakers can dial 888-57-PISTA. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Community Reaction and Safety Concerns
Flowers and candles have been placed outside Suarez’s home, where a Salvadoran flag hung in the window. She was a native of El Salvador and a graduate of Brooklyn College and Kingsborough Community College, according to her LinkedIn, and had worked as a bank teller for more than five years.
“It’s going to come to light whoever truly did it,” her cousin Gianluca Frances, 19, said outside the hospital, calling it “truly an awful, awful time.” A neighbor said simply: “It’s a mad world.”
Runners and residents who use the path are recalibrating. “I would have my guard up a little more now, just, you know, see who’s around me maybe do in safer times,” one resident told ABC30. State Senator Steve Chan is calling for more lighting and cameras along the route. “We need cameras to keep surveillance on the bike path,” he told CBS New York, noting that new wiring installed with a rebuilt foot bridge at 17th Avenue should carry more lights than are currently planned.
The stabbing came little more than a week after a 39-year-old woman told police she was pulled into a wooded area of Central Park at about 8:30 p.m. on October 24 by a man with a knife and assaulted before he ran off.
What It Means for Urban Runners
The Shore Parkway Greenway is one of the city’s most used training routes, popular with walkers, joggers, bikers and fishermen, with views of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and Staten Island. Its appeal is also its vulnerability: long stretches of waterfront with sparse lighting and, in this case, no camera coverage at the point of attack.
For readers mapping out their own routes, the case reinforces a few practical habits: run with a phone and share a live location with someone expecting you, tell a family member your route and turnaround time, favor lit and populated stretches after dark, and vary your schedule. The NYPD’s appeal shows how quickly a five-minute window matters: Suarez was last heard from at 8 p.m. and was found within roughly half a mile of where she planned to meet her parents.
The New York City Marathon is scheduled for Sunday. Police are continuing to investigate and have asked anyone with information to contact detectives.
Sources
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- NYC jogger stabbed in neck was planning to meet parents when attacked, sources say — as more chilling details emerge
- Brooklyn jogger stabbed twice in neck spoke to father minutes before attack: sources
- Woman stabbed, attacked while training for NYC Marathon, police say
- Woman, 28, on jog in New York ‘stabbed in neck’ moments after speaking to dad
Photo: Chris Hunkeler from Carlsbad, California, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0)
