A Queens woman accused of shoving a man in front of a subway train to his death last month said her victim tried to shake her off before he fell onto the tracks in front of the No. 7 train. In an interview with The New York Post on Jan. 18, Erika Menendez said she did it because she was having a bad day and that on the day of the attack, her "mind was just racing.”
Menendez, 31, was charged with murder in the death of 46-year-old Sunando Sen, who was shoved onto an oncoming subway train at the 40th Street-Lowery Street station in Sunnyside, Dec. 29.
"I was homeless. I was hungry. I was fighting with my boyfriend. He came running up the stairs, and I just got up and pushed him, she told The Post at Rikers Island, where she is awaiting trial in the killing.
Last week, Menendez, who has a history of mental problems, was found fit to stand trial. The 31-year-old has confessed that she picked Sen because of his ethnicity, admitting to "beating up Muslims and Hindus for a long time," and wanted to hurt the religious groups ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"I'm not mad about the people. I'm mad because I liked the buildings," she told The Post, referring to the World Trade Center. Sen, 46, was a Hindu.
Menendez also admitted that Sen’s life may not have been cut short had she taken the pills she was prescribed. She stopped using the medication due to the side-effects and started self-medicating by smoking weed.
"If I smoked a blunt that day, I wouldn't have pushed him,” she told The Post.
Sen died beneath the Queens-bound subway just six months after he opened his own printing business - New Amsterdam Copies - near Columbia University in Manhattan. According to The Daily News, Sen’s body was pinned under the second car after it came to a stop.
News reports describe Sen as being unmarried and since both his parents had died, he lived with two roommates in a small apartment in Elmhurst.
Sen, who reportedly lived in the city for the past 20 years, was cremated at a funeral home in Rego Park on Dec. 30 by his friends.
