Handyman convicted of Brooklyn landlord’s grisly murder

A Brooklyn handyman charged with killing and dismembering his landlord in 2006 was found guilty of second-degree murder Monday and faces 25 years to life in prison.

A jury deliberated for just three hours before convicting Luis Perez for the murder of landlord Bruce Blackwood. Perez will be sentenced Oct. 13.

Blackwood disappeared in 2006 on the same day he confronted Perez – a handyman who did odd jobs at Blackwood’s properties and rented a Bushwick apartment from the landlord – about stealing $7,700 in forged checks from him, according to the New York Post.

While Perez was long considered the prime suspect in Blackwood’s disappearance, he was only arrested on murder charges last year – with prosecutors’ most damning piece of evidence being three-and-a-half hours of secretly taped audio recordings between the handyman and his daughter.

Perez appeared to boast about the murder on the tape, telling his daughter, “It’s not about committing the perfect crime – it’s about cleaning up afterwards,” and describing grisly details of the killing. One juror told the Post that the taped conversations were the most compelling piece of evidence in the trial.

The handyman nearly got away with the crime after meticulously scrubbing his apartment clean with hospital-grade bleach and dumping bottles of Drano down the bathtub to dissolve traces of Blackwood’s blood, prosecutors said.

Landlord killings were in the news last year after Menachem Stark and Mahuddin Mahmud were both found murdered in the span of one week in January. [NYP] – Rey Mashayekhi