Upper West Side Mom and Kids Found Stabbed to Death in Apparent Murder-Suicide
New York – Heartbreaking social media photos show an Upper West Side mom and her two young sons cuddling just a few months before police said they were stabbed to death by their husband and father, who then turned a knife on himself at their home this week.
The photos, which were uploaded to Facebook in January, show 40-year-old Alexandra “Ola” Witek cradling her sons — 3-year-old Lucien and then-6-month-old Calvin — against her chest while sitting on a bench.
“They’re the best,” the doting mom said of her children, in response to a friend’s congratulatory comment.
The photos paint a picture of a happy family, but the reality was much darker.
On Monday afternoon, Witek, her sons, and their husband and father, 41-year-old Edison Lopez, were found dead in their fourth-floor apartment on West 86th Street.
Police believe Lopez killed his family before fatally stabbing himself.
The kids’ bodies were so ravaged in the attack that they were initially misidentified as a boy and a girl, the sources said.
Neighbors said Lopez and Witek had grown up on the block together, meeting very young and going to high school together.
Her dad used to be a doorman across the street, and his father was the super of the couple’s building until Lopez took over for him.
Both were first-generation Americans, with Lopez’s family hailing from Venezuela and Witek’s roots being in Poland.
“They grew up here,” a family friend told The Post. “This is crazy. I know him since he was a little boy and she was a little girl. I have seen them together when they were young.”
“I didn’t see this coming. I’ve never seen [Lopez] angry, never. I’ve never seen them fighting,” the family friend said in disbelief.
The motive for the killings is still unclear, but police are investigating whether Lopez was upset about having to move out of the apartment.
The family had apparently been facing pressure to move in the weeks before the shocking incident as Lopez had apparently gotten a new job in Westchester.
“I saw him on Friday…he said he was leaving for another job and they were giving him like two weeks to get out,” the family friend recalled of his last interaction with Lopez.
“He was upset or something…like, worried. I have never seen him like that,” the super said.
The doorman outside the family’s building confirmed that Lopez talked about moving in recent weeks, but said it seemed like the dad was “excited” about the prospect.
“He was expected to go to a new job. He was telling everybody about it — more space for his kids…he was excited,” the doorman said.
“Nobody knows what was going on. He was such a quiet guy, very nice. I don’t know how something like this could have happened.”
The killings have left the neighborhood in shock.
“It’s a very close-knit community,” a neighbor said. “Everyone is just devastated.”