A homeless man accused of stabbing a straphanger to death on a Manhattan train said he tossed the knife into a subway tunnel and trashed his bloody sweatshirt, according to court documents.
Accused killer Claude White was arraigned late Tuesday on second-degree murder charges in the stabbing death of 32-year-old Tavon Silver. The victim was discovered bleeding profusely from numerous stab wounds while seated in a rear car of a Brooklyn-bound No. 4 train at the 14th St.-Union Square station just after 4 a.m. Saturday, cops said.
According to a criminal complaint, Silver was stabbed in the chest, and died from a wound to his heart.
“I was on top of him and I grabbed the knife and I stabbed him and threw the knife into the subway tunnel,” said White, 33, according to a court document. “I threw my sweatshirt out in the trash. “It had a lot of his blood on it.”
Prosecutors said Silver was killed in a dispute over K2, the synthetic marijuana drug, during a sale that went bad.
Paramedics rushed the victim to Bellevue Hospital, where he died, cops said.
Silver, a Connecticut native, reveled in living in New York City, where he felt more free to live his life as a gay man, according to friends.
“That’s where he found his happiness,” said Amy Walker, 33, a close family friend.
“He changed his whole style. He didn’t want to be the same as everybody else. ‘If this is my style, I’m gonna rock my style,’” she added.
Silver was the victim of a previous hate-fueled slashing last year in the Bronx, where another rider attacked him for playing his music too loud.
After recovering from last year’s attack, Silver continued to embrace life in the big city, but he also developed a newfound respect for the fragility of life, Walker said.
Walker said she still has a message her friend sent to her after the Bronx slashing.
“He sent me a message: ‘There’s so many things going on in the world, it could be any one of us. I just want you to know that I care about…
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