'Serial killer' pleads guilty to murdering 3 elderly women in his Brooklyn building, gets 30 years

Colin Mixson, New York Daily News on Apr 25, 2026

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NEW YORK — An accused serial killer who treated his building within a Brooklyn NYCHA complex as a hunting ground, brutally killing three elderly neighbors, pleaded guilty to the murders before a Brooklyn judge on Friday, according to law enforcement officials.

Kevin Gavin, 71, pleaded guilty to committing the killings, all in the same Powell Ave. building in Brownsville between 2015 and 2021. In exchange for his guilty plea, the court agreed to give Gavin 30 years to life in prison at his sentencing on May 20, said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.

“This defendant exploited elderly women who trusted him, gained access to their homes, and murdered them in a series of brutal attacks that shocked the conscience,” Gonzalez said. “These victims were vulnerable neighbors who deserved safety and dignity, and instead had their lives stolen by someone they believed was there to help.”

A local handyman, Gavin gained his victims’ trust by fixing things around their apartments in the Carter G. Woodson Houses, where they all lived. In each case, investigators found no evidence of forced entry and nothing appeared to be missing from the apartment.

Gavin’s first victim, Myrtle McKinney, 82, was found dead on her kitchen floor on Nov. 8, 2015. Initially treated as a death by natural causes, the case was later ruled a homicide after an undertaker noticed a knife wound on the back of her neck. She had also suffered three broken ribs.

Gavin later admitted to investigators that he attacked McKinney — but claimed he pushed her “into a table where a steak knife was located and it punctured her,” court papers said.

In the death of Jacolia James, 83, whose lifeless body was found in her 11th-floor apartment on April 30, 2019, the handyman confessed to choking her, before he “stomped on her neck three times,” according to court documents.

In the last of the three killings, on Jan. 14, 2021, Gavin choked the life out of Juanita Caballero, 78, wrapping a phone chord around her neck during a robbery.

In an interview with 73rd Precinct cops, the handyman said that “during a struggle, a phone cord wrapped around (her) neck,” according to a criminal complaint.

Caballero was found dead the next day by her son, who told police he had arrived to find the front door locked, then saw his mother lying in her apartment hallway. He tried to perform CPR but couldn’t revive her, cops said.

Investigators identified Gavin as a suspect after he was spotted on video surveillance using Caballero’s debit card following her death. He was arrested on Jan. 21, 2021, and later confessed to all three murders, Gonzalez said.