Charged: David Bonola is a suspect in the murder of Orsolya Gaal.
The handyman lover of Queens mom Orsolya Gaal was charged with her murder on Thursday. Police say he killed her after confronting her about their two-year on-and-off relationship.
David Bonola, 44, was arrested late Wednesday when officers were looking for surveillance footage in the area. They took him back to the 112th precinct with them, where he made “incriminating statements,” the NYPD’s Chief of Detectives said at a press conference.
Cops say he stabbed Gaal nearly 60 times with a knife in the basement of her Forest Hills house early on Saturday. He was charged with murder, criminal tampering, and criminal possession of a weapon.
Expletives were thrown as he was led out of the 112th Precinct Thursday afternoon when reporters asked him about the case.
Mother f–kers! Screamed: Bonola, dressed in a white Tyvek suit, was shoved into a police car.
Bonola, who cops say hasn’t been arrested before, was “a handyman who worked for Mrs. Gaal for about two years,” Essig said Thursday. During that time, the two had “an intimate relationship,” he said, adding that they didn’t have any children.
Reporters didn’t get to know the ponytailed suspect very well. As he was led to a waiting car, he spit out expletives.
Bonola, who cops say hasn’t been arrested before, was “a handyman who worked for Mrs. Gaal” and had been “having an intimate relationship for about two years,” Essig said Thursday, per the New York Daily News.
In the last few weeks, they had rekindled their on-off relationship, only to break up again. Chief Julie Morrill, who led the investigation, said Bonola “came back to talk about the relationship again.”
As soon as Gaal came home from an evening out at Lincoln Center and then a drink alone at a local bar, he’s thought to have arrived at her house.
The on-off lover was “either let in by accident, or he used a key he knows about that was hidden in a barbecue.”
An argument breaks out in the basement between the two. Our victim was stabbed 55 times “ruthlessly and brutally,” Essig said. “She was stabbed more than 50 times.”
Afterward, “Bonola went to her son’s hockey bag and took the bag with Mrs. Gaal inside,” Essig said. “He put Mrs. Gaal in the bag and then rolled the body down a sidewalk, leaving a trail of blood in the streets of Forest Hills,” he said.
Detectives found the man’s likely murder weapon and his jacket, which he threw away as he fled the scene.
The detectives also found where he might have kept his blood-soaked boots, a T-shirt, and bandages, Essig told the Daily News.
The cop also said that Bonola had both of his hands cut very badly during the attack, and that he was treated at a nearby hospital.
Officials say that he also told them that he had sent disturbing text messages to the family of his murdered lover from his murdered lover’s phone.
Police said that the handyman did everything alone.
At this point, “I just want to make sure everyone, especially people in Forest Hills, knows that there are no suspects at this time.”
An account called Bonola used to comment on some of Gaal’s photos and send her public messages of “love” and “heart” emojis.
“She is the most beautiful woman,” he wrote next to a picture of her in May 2020 with a blushing face emoji covered in hearts.
In that message, there was also an emoji of Guatemala’s flag. It came a few months after Gaal said she loves “everything Guatemalan” and a year after she posted photos of her own trip to the Central American country.
A screenshot May took of her and her friends at a Zoom party was also written in Spanish by him. “Your loving sight,” he wrote.
A heart and “Hola” were all that was written on a picture of Gaal from when he was a little boy. He put it next to two gushing tributes to her husband, with pictures from their wedding day.
He also sent her a heart when she posted a picture of herself in a field in October 2019. The account, which is only used a few times, suggests that he was a scriptwriter. When he said something, his mom gave him thumbs up.
Both of their accounts didn’t say that they were friends on Thursday, but there was one under his name that was used more often.
Since there were no signs of break-in, police quickly suspected that the killer knew Gaal. The violence also suggested that it was personal and fueled by anger only toward her.
They paid attention to her handyman because they knew that he had a romantic relationship that went bad, sources said.
Gaal’s 13-year-old son was upstairs in the house when his mother was killed downstairs. He was briefly taken to a precinct for questioning, but said he didn’t know where his mother was.
She was married to a 53-year-old man named Howard Klein at the time. He was in Oregon with their 17-year-old son, who was visiting colleges.
The handyman said that he sent Klein threatening messages from Gaal’s phone, including one that said, “Your whole family is next.”
His whole family could be in danger, Klein told the New York Post.
