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By Thomas Tracy
Brooklyn Daily
Cops have nabbed “John Doe duffle bag” — and he may be a Bay Ridge resident.
Police are questioning a man they say was seen at two of the three crime scenes where Southern Brooklyn shopkeepers have been murdered — a man sources say frequents Bay Ridge.
The man was captured in a spot he’s been known to frequent, investigators claim.
“We’d been looking for him for two days,” a police source told Brooklyn Daily. “Detectives narrowed down a few places where this guy had been seen before and sure enough he shows up.”
Cops have yet to disclose the man’s identity, since he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Investigators questioned the man for most of the afternoon and were in the process of transferring him to Patrol Borough Brooklyn South headquarters in East Flatbush for further questioning as our web deadline approached.
“By the end of the nigh we’re going to know everything,” the source told us. “The last woman he f-----, everything.”
Police say the man who gunned down two merchants in the summer struck again on Nov. 16, killing 78-year-old Flatbush clothing store owner Vahidipour Rahmatollah in his Flatbush Avenue shop.
Cops were using footage from neighborhood surveillance cameras to try to find a witness to the slaying when they spotted a man they had seen before.
A balding, mustachioed man toting a duffle bag that investigators nicknamed “John Doe duffle bag” was seen on Friday, as well as on 86th Street in August after 99-Cent store owner Isaac Kadare, 59, was shot to death — making him the NYPD’s top “person of interest.”
Ballistic tests confirmed that the same gun was used in Rahmatollah’s killing, as well as he murders of Kadare and Bay Ridge clothing merchant Mohammed Gebeli in July.
“It was a positive match to those recovered at the two other crime scenes this past summer,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in a statement.
Cops were dispatched to She She Inc. near Linden Boulevard, at 7:17 pm after Rahmatollah was found dead inside his store.
The senior had been shot in the head — a killing that quickly brought back memories of the slaying of Kadare.
An autopsy revealed that Kadare died from a bullet to the skull — a bullet fired from the same .22-caliber gun that killed Gebeli in his Bay Ridge clothing store. Gebeli had been shot in the neck, police sources say.
Detectives released then scrapped a sketch of a previous person of interest, and said investigators have a line on two possible witnesses to the crime. But so far, no one has been charged with the murders.
Police sources say that Rahmatollah had been shot behind the counter, dragged about 10 feet and covered up with items from the store — the same way that both of the previous victims had been found.
Cops are currently offering a $40,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and indictment of the suspect.
Anyone with information regarding these three murders is urged to contact the NYPD CrimeStoppers hotline at (800) 577–8477.
Reach Deputy Editor Thomas Tracy at ttracy@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2525.