Ambulette Driver Found Beaten to Death in Vehicle

A 64-year-old ambulette driver discovered beaten to death in the Bronx, New York City, on Monday morning, January 13, was identified as Peter Forrest, a pioneering musician who once performed with the band 24-7 Spyz under the stage name P. Fluid.

Forrest, who worked for Long Island-based Marquis Ambulette, was found face-down in a pool of blood in the back of his company vehicle parked on Castle Hill Avenue near Howe Avenue in the Castle Hill neighborhood around 10:30 a.m., according to police sources.

“We are cooperating and it’s a terrible tragedy for the family and [our] hearts are going out to his family,” the coworker who had found him told the Daily News, requesting anonymity.

The company had last heard from Forrest around 8 a.m. that morning. When he failed to make scheduled pickups and stopped answering his phone, concerned colleagues used GPS tracking to locate his ambulette. Upon finding the vehicle, they discovered its front door window had been broken.

Surveillance footage revealed new details about the morning’s events. The ambulette was seen parking at the corner of Castle Hill Avenue and Hart Street along Westchester Creek and Castle Hill Park around 9:00 a.m. Approximately 30 minutes later, a man exited the driver’s side and entered a waiting car with a woman.

“He’s a quiet guy,” said a resident of Forrest’s apartment building in the Allerton neighborhood. “You only see him going in and out of the building, that’s it. He doesn’t say nothing to nobody.”

Before his work as an ambulette driver, Forrest had a significant career in music. His former girlfriend, Chiedza Makonnen, described him as “the last person you would think would pass like that” and noted that he “didn’t deserve that.”

Forrest was a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition and performed with 24-7 Spyz, a band that mixed metal, hardcore, punk, and funk. The group had opened for Grammy-nominated rock band Jane’s Addiction. After leaving 24-7 Spyz, he formed P.Fluid and the P.Fluid Foundation, later creating a new band called BlkVampires.

The medical examiner determined that Forrest died from blunt impact injuries to his head and torso. The New York Police Department (NYPD) is investigating the case as a homicide, though no arrests have been made. The police are asking anyone with information about the incident to contact Crime Stoppers.

In another violent incident in the Bronx over the past week, a 29-year-old man has been charged in the deadly stabbing of a 14-year-old boy, which police have called a random and unprovoked assault.

The victim, Caleb Rijos, was on his way to school on Friday, January 10, when Waldo Mejia allegedly attacked him, inflicting fatal stab wounds to his heart and lungs, according to the NYPD. Rijos was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

On Saturday, police announced that Mejia had been arrested and charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a weapon. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch described Mejia as a “violent recidivist” with an extensive criminal background and a history of mental health interactions with the NYPD.

According to Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, Rijos, a student at Bronx Leadership Academy High School, was a dedicated student and a football player. Clark referred to the incident as an “unfathomable” tragedy and expressed her condolences to the boy’s family and loved ones.

“He called his father and told his father he couldn’t breathe and that he was scared, and his father heard him dying,” Clark said.

Authorities suspect that Mejia was involved in another stabbing earlier this year. On January 5, a 38-year-old man sustained an arm injury after being stabbed while entering a subway station in the Bronx, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.

On November 27, 2024, Mejia was arrested for allegedly using a kitchen knife to stab a neighbor’s Ring camera. Police reported that he was released without bail the following day. Mejia was also arrested in 2019 for burglary and arson after allegedly lighting a neighbor’s home on fire, and in 2017 and 2015 on weapons possession charges, according to police.

Tisch called the teen’s killing “absolutely senseless and tragic.”

“Today, a 14-year-old is dead, a family is devastated, a city is in mourning, and the systems we have in place to deal with repeat offenders and individuals with severe mental health issues continue to fail us,” she said.

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