New York City’s first murder victim of the new year was a 72-year-old US Air Force veteran. He was found with a 12-inch gash along his neck, and his alleged killer used a scalpel to inflict the deadly cut, prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said. Darnell Jackson, 39, described the surgical tool as “the murder weapon” when he surrendered himself and the blade to police at the 26th Precinct stationhouse in West Harlem around 5 a.m. on New Year’s Day, according to prosecutors. Jackson was arraigned Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court, where he was charged with murder and a judge ordered him held without bail. Surveillance footage shows Jackson attacking Alfredo Cortes as the elderly man walked with a cane on Lenox Ave. near W. 137th St. in Harlem shortly after 4 a.m., prosecutors said. NYPD officers investigate a fatal slashing outside a deli at Lenox Ave. and W. 137th St. in Harlem on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, in New York City. (Barry Williams / New York Daily News) Jackson can be seen shoving Cortes to the ground and punching him repeatedly in the video, before cutting the senior’s throat, said prosecutors. The video then shows the elderly victim stumble toward a nearby deli where he collapsed, according to prosecutors. Paramedics rushed Cortes to Harlem Hospital with the footlong neck wound. He was pronounced dead at 4:42 a.m., court documents show. The 15-year Air Force veteran rang in the new year drinking champagne at this W. 137th St. apartment, a block away from where he was attacked, his caretaker told the Daily News. “I was the last person to see him alive,” said 70-year-old Wayne Couey. “We brought in the new year together. We celebrated with three or four bottles of champagne.” Couey accused Jackson of having a reputation as a neighborhood “bully” and said he was known to hang out on the corner where Cortes was killed. “He always had an attitude, like everybody owed him something,” Couey said. The caretaker said he left Cortes’ apartment shortly before midnight Tuesday and that his friend’s alleged killer menaced him on his way home. NYPD officers investigate a fatal slashing outside a deli on Lenox Ave. and W. 137th St. in Harlem on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in New York City. (Barry Williams / New York Daily News) “On my way out of the building, I saw the guy who sliced his neck and said, ‘Happy New Year,’ but he just growled,” Couey said. Couey told The News he wished he’d never left his friend that night. “I told Alfredo not to go out, to get some rest, but he went out anyway,” the caretaker said. “I feel guilty because if I’d been with him this might have not happened. He was a good guy, he did not deserve this.” Cortes’ fatal slashing marked the first of three murders that shook New York City mere hours after the ball dropped in Times Square. Police responded to a fatal stabbing around 5 a.m. at Westchester and Manor Aves. in Soundview, in the Bronx, where a 32-year-old man was stabbed in the back of the neck and suffered trauma to his body. Medics rushed the victim to Jacobi Medical Center where he was initially listed in stable condition before dying of his injuries. His name was not immediately released. There were no arrests in the case. Shortly after the Soundview stabbing, police were called to E. 170th St. near Teller Ave. where gunfire erupted across the street from Claremont Park in the Bronx around 5:20 a.m. First responders found Mario Fowler, 46, with bullet wounds to both legs inside his apartment building, located down the block from where the shots rang out. EMS transported him to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he died. Mario Fowler (Instagram) A witness told The News he saw Fowler bleeding out near the building’s steps as two police officers tried to render aid to him. “They said he was not responsive. That’s when I knew he was gone,” the witness said. “Everybody in the building knew him. He was a really good guy.” A trail of blood was seen near the steps of the building. The scene where Mario Fowler, 46, bled out on the first floor landing of his apt building at 364 East 170 St. (Kerry Burke/NYDN) A next-door neighbor of Fowler’s, Cielo Ortiz, 72, remembered him as a “respectful person.” “He was a good family man. He had four kids, three of them grown,” Ortiz said.