A Queens couple fatally stabbed by their unhinged landlord in a gruesome triple slaying was on the verge of moving out before being killed, says the dead man’s brother, breaking his silence on the eve of his sibling’s funeral.
Tragic pair Wayne Thomas, 57, and Evette Sweeney, 51, were just waiting for their St. Albans landlord, David Daniel, to return their deposit when Daniel allegedly went berserk and stabbed his girlfriend to death before going after the couple in their basement apartment Nov. 14, Ronald Thomas told The Post.
Sweeney had trouble walking, and the pair were hoping to get a new home to better accommodate her, Ronald Thomas said — as he prepared to help bury his brother Wayne on Saturday, more than three weeks after the senseless slayings.
“They were planning to leave,” Ronald, 55, said of his sibling and Sweeney. “They should have left from August. They found a place but didn’t have a chance to get out. I was told he was waiting for his deposit from the landlord.
“It was devasting,” he said of the slayings. “I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. We still cannot believe this happened. The family cannot come to grips with this terrible tragedy.”
Daniel, 54, was arraigned Monday on an indictment charging him with three counts each of first- and third-degree murder, and criminal possession of a weapon in the bloody incident.
He was arrested after walking into the 113th Precinct stationhouse shortly after 7 a.m. Nov. 14 and allegedly confessing to the grisly slayings, telling cops he left the back door open for them.
“I did something bad,” he allegedly told police.
Inside the house, cops found the bloodied bodies of Daniel’s girlfriend, 51-year-old Coleen Ceasar, and the two tenants, still inside their basement apartment.
The next day, Daniel told reporters as he was being led from the precinct to Queens Criminal Court that he stabbed the victims because of “a lot of pressure.”
Ronald Thomas said his brother worked at JFK International Airport, where Ronald works as a supervisor in the cargo division and had gotten him the job.
