The father of the Upper West Side building super who police suspect knifed his fiancée and two young boys to death, before taking his own life, said he saw no signs of distress before the tragedy.
Mario Lopez, 66, said he spent time over the weekend with his son, Edison Lopez, 41, and his family — childhood sweetheart Aleksandra “Ola” Witek, 40; Calvin Lopez, 1; and Lucien Lopez, 3 — and all seemed well.
“If you look around and ask their friends -– very levelheaded individuals. Both of them,” the elder Lopez told Gothamist, referring to his son and Witek. “You usually see problems in a couple where you see the behavior of the children affected immediately. Their grandmother, my wife, took care of them. We didn’t see anything.”
The grandfather recalled that the last time he saw him, his 3-year-old grandson played with a new toy Jeep.
Mario Lopez told the outlet that the family was still trying to come to grips with the enormity of the tragedy.
“It’s not a good situation for anyone,” he said. “We just need to grieve and go ahead with our lives. That’s all there is.”
Mario Lopez, who works as a superintendent across the street from his son’s building on West 86th Street, said he and his wife were the ones who discovered the family of four dead inside their apartment Monday, after being unable to reach them since Sunday.
The elder Lopez drilled the lock on the front door and caught sight of blood inside, sources said.
“We saw them inside,” Mario Lopez told Gothamist, as he held back tears. “They were already dead, whatever happened, happened maybe the day before.”
When police entered the family’s apartment on the fourth floor and found the bodies, they had been so badly mutilated that officers initially mistook one of Witek and Lopez’s sons for a girl.
Both tots were discovered in the living room with two knives next to them, according to police sources.
Witek lay in the hallway. The NYC schoolteacher’s neck had been slashed.
Her fiancée was on the bed with a cut throat and a third knife next to him, sources said.
The NYPD has confirmed that it was investigating the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide, possibly related to Edison Lopez’s new job in Westchester County — and the relocation that it would entail.
Police and neighbors said that the 41-year-old building superintendent appeared stressed about the move, given that his new apartment in Hastings-on-Hudson would not be ready by Sept. 1, when the family were expected to leave their old apartment on West 86th Street.
“There may have been some problems with the timing of the relocation, meaning he had to leave his apartment on 86th Street by the first and we’re hearing that quite possibly the apartment in Hastings wasn’t ready for him yet,” NYPD Assistant Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny told reporters Tuesday.
Some neighbors told The Post that Lopez was looking forward to moving his family from their cramped one-bedroom unit into a more spacious home.
“I talked to him about it, he was happy,” said Richard Allen, a 74-year-old resident who has lived on the sixth floor since 2000.
But a longtime friend from the neighborhood said that Lopez seemed “upset” and “worried” about the upcoming move when he spoke to him Friday.
“I have never seen him like that,” the friend said.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.