John Doe Duffel has been bagged.
Salvatore Perrone, a balding, mustachioed man dubbed “Son of Sal” by his neighbors, was charged Wednesday in the chilling serial killings of three Brooklyn shopkeepers after confessing to two of the slayings, police said.
The nebbishy-dressed door-to-door salesman had been a prime suspect after cops spotted him in surveillance footage and dubbed him “John Doe Duffel Bag” until they brought him in for questioning Tuesday. Though Perrone, who turns 64 today, did not reveal a motive for the killings, he didn’t hesitate to talk during the interrogation.
“When he came in he signed the Miranda, (saying) ‘I’ll talk to you, I want to talk to you,'” a police source said. “He thought he’d outsmart us, but he wasn’t arrogant — just very level, no emotion. At one point he actually said, ‘I’ll be out of here in the morning.'”
The alleged killer ate pizza, a sandwich, smoked cigars and made numerous trips to the bathroom in the hours he talked to detectives, a source said.
He eventually clammed up and took a nap after admitting to two of the slayings, sources said.
“He just stopped talking. Who can explain it? You’re not going to be able to explain this guy at all,” a law enforcement source told the Daily News. “I’m not a psychologist, but he seems to have mental problems. He’s a little delusional.”
Those delusions extended to Perrone’s own troubled family life and finances, a source said.
“Nothing is his fault. His wife leaving him is her fault. His daughter being estranged from him is his wife’s fault,” the source said.
Cops were still trying to figure out the motivation for the slayings. An FBI profiler advised detectives to get Perrone to open up by exploring several avenues, including whether the changing demographics in Bay Ridge and the clothing business had infuriated him.
But he didn’t take the bait and failed to indicate that was an issue, a police source said.
Perrone’s neighbors in Staten Island nicknamed him “Son of Sal,” and one even called him “insane” — saying he was creepy and annoying and would report them to 311 for things like trash-can violations and minor building irregularities.
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The sawed-off psycho used the weapon in all the homicides, according to ballistic tests and authorities. Detectives additionally lifted the suspect’s fingerprints from the gun, which had a single live round in the chamber, police said.
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said detectives also found .22-caliber ammunition, an empty magazine, two 7-inch-blade Buck knives and a bloody kitchen knife.
The gun had a combo laser/flashlight attached to its barrel with duct tape and rubber bands.
The knife is being analyzed to determine if it was used to stab victim Isaac Kadare, 59, in the neck.
Kelly called Perrone a “serial killer.”
“I think it’s reasonable to assume that he was going to continue doing this, and, by arresting him, we saved lives,” he said. “We know that he went to other locations, and asked questions that indicated that. Now that we look at them, he may very well have been planning to come back.”
Perrone faces one first-degree murder charge and three second-degree murder charges.
