Detectives trying to solve the brutal murder of Queens mom Orsolya Gaal had handyman David Bonola under surveillance for some time before his arrest on Thursday.
As CrimeOnline has reported, investigators followed a trail of blood from the wheeled hockey bag where they found Gaal’s body, with nearly 60 stab wounds, early Saturday. The blood led them to her home, just a few blocks away.
There, on the refrigerator, they found a note, according to The Daily Beast, who spoke with a senior New York police supervisor. “GET A NEW HANDYMAN,” the note said.
A search of Forest Park — the bloody duffel bag was dumped on the sidewalk on the edge of the park — uncovered bloody rags, which investigators believe the killer used to bandage his hands. Killers who use knives as a weapon of convenience in a crime of passion often don’t know how slippery blood is, and frequently cut themselves in their frenzy.
Deeper in the park, they found something else: an orange jacket stuffed into a hollow tree, also bloody.
Gaal’s phone records showed contact with Bonola, and Chief James Essig said during a news conference that the two had an on-again, off-again relationship for several years, but by the time of the murder, it was over for good.
And so detectives were watching Bonola’s home on the other side of Forest Park from Gaal’s upscale neighborhood. on Wednesday when the trash truck came by to pick up his garbage. The detectives stopped the truck around the corner, and found a pair of bloody work boots.
The next day, Bonola noticed the cops watching him and asked if they were looking for him, the supervisor told The Daily Beast. They said they wanted to talk with him, and he agreed to ride with them to the 112th precinct station house, where he spent the better part of a half hour suggesting that someone other than him killed Orsolya Gaal, possibly even another handyman.
When the investigators asked him about an injury to his hand, he answered that he’d hurt himself at work. But a photograph detectives had showed his bandaged hand after the murder but before he said he suffered the injury.
Shortly after, police say Bonola made a full confession, telling detetives that he and Gaal had been in a relationship for about two years, that he’d been angry when he saw text messages on her phone from another man.
Bonola said he went to talk with her about it after midnight on Saturday morning. They argued, he grabbed a knife and stabbed her repeatedly. He told detectives he stuffed her body in the hockey bag and rolled it away from the house because he didn’t want her family to find her.
A doorbell camera captured the haunting image of Bonola dragging the duffel down Juno Street at 4:30 a.m., where a dog walker came across it hours later.
The hockey bag, the rags, the jacket — they were all found on the path Bonola took to go home through Forest Park.
Bonola has been charged with murder, criminal tampering, and criminal possession of a weapon.
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[Featured image: David Bonola/WABC screengrab and Orsolya Gaal/Facebook]
