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A FORMER neighbor of the so-called Baby-Faced Butcher has given an inside look at the teen who would reportedly pick a fight on her upper-class Manhattan street.
Food industry heiress Daphne Abdela was just 15 when she was accused of murdering Michael McMorrow, 44, in New York City’s Central Park.
On May 23, 1994, cops found the brutalized body of real estate worker McMorrow in a pond with dozens of stab wounds.
He had been gutted and filled with stones to try and sink his body, detectives who worked the scene said in the Netflix documentary Homicide: New York.
Cops discovered the body after interviewing Daphne from her parents’ idyllic Upper West Side apartment which was just a block from the park.
Daphne had called 911 to report the death, and responding officers found her and her friend Christopher Vasquez, also 15 at the time, in a bathroom washing blood off themselves.
She cursed out cops when they came into the room, but later told them about the body and admitted she was involved, ex-detectives said in the doc.
Investigators found that Daphne had met McMorrow in alcoholics anonymous, and they became drinking buddies who would meet up in Central Park to hang out.
Christopher connected with Daphne through their shared love of rollerskating, and the three had been hanging out the night they died.
However, it was unclear at the time how a meeting between a real estate employee and an heiress ended in a bloodbath.
Mystery surrounded the murder as some believed it was the twisted plot of a spoiled brat while others thought Christopher could have been defending his friend from an older predator.
It was up to the detectives to find out the motive for the killing and decide whether the teens were capable of murder.
DAPHNE’S CHILDHOOD
One woman who also lived on the Upper West Side at the time was shocked to realize that she recognized the young alleged killer.
“We all used to play in Central Park, all of the mothers with their kids,” Stella Sands said in an exclusive conversation with The U.S. Sun.
“And Daphne was one of the kids and my daughter was one of the kids. They all played together when they were like 2, 3, and 4.”
Sands said that Daphne and her daughter ended up going to different schools when they got older, so she fell out of touch with the girl.
She’d hang out on the street. She was always picking fights with people
Stella Sands, ex-neighbor of Daphne Abdela
However, years after Daphne’s case made headlines, she decided to interview former friends and those close to Daphne and Christopher to get an inside look at their lives for her book Baby-Faced Butchers.
Daphne is the adopted daughter of Angelo Abdela, a former senior executive at a large food services company, and the late Catherine Abdela, who was a French model.
She was an only child and enjoyed all the luxuries of upper-class life in New York City, including enrollment in elite private schools.
However, instead of spending her time at fencing lessons, Daphne hung out on the streets with her friends after school to stir up trouble, according to Sands.
People close to the case said the teen acted like a “badass” and was “tough-looking.”
“She’d hang out on our street. She was always picking fights with people,” Sands, who has published several true crime novels said.
“She was not your sweet lovely little blonde girl. She was to be reckoned with.”
After Daphne’s arrest, a woman whose daughter was on a swim team with Daphne described how she was dismissive and unkind to her mother.
“Daphne would walk three feet in front of her mother. She seemed like a bully,” Gail Slatter told The New York Times in 1997.
“Daphne never smiled. She never laughed. After she got out of the pool, the child would come over and the other couldn’t get close to her.”
According to Slatter, Daphne’s mother seemed “intimidated by her.”
“Her mother would ask her things and Daphne was always unresponsive. She would ignore her,” Slatter said.
CHILD CHARGED
After calling the police, Daphne told officials that Christopher attacked McMorrow after the teens went skinny dipping in Central Park.
She claimed that McMorrow had tried to grab her and kiss her after she got out of the water, causing Christopher to enter a mad rage.
Who is Daphne Abdela?
Daphne Abdela is the adopted daughter of food executive Angelo Abdela and his wife, the late French model Catherine Abdela.
She was raised in the New York City burrow Manhattan and lived in an elite Upper West Side neighborhood located beside the park.
Abdela went to an enviable private school, but caused trouble as a teen, according to author Stella Sands.
She got into fights in her neighborhood and eventually ended up in alcoholics anonymous.
It was at AA where she met real estate worker Michael McMorrow, who she would later be accused of murdering.
The teen boy then snagged his pocket knife and started attacking him while a horrified Daphne tried to hold him back, she said at the time.
During their investigation, detectives recovered Christopher’s bloody knife and found DNA that matched the victim’s.
However, they questioned how one 15-year-old boy could overpower a 6-foot-1 man who weighs around 200 pounds.
After analyzing McMarrow’s body, death investigators found bruises that were consistent with the bottom of Daphne’s rollerskates.
The evidence was presented to Daphne in an informal meeting with prosecutors, and a plea deal was offered to the teens.
Daphne and Christopher were both convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to serve three to 10 years in prison.
They both served six years before they were released.
Neither Daphne nor Christopher have been arrested again since serving their time.
Because no trial was held, questions about the killing still remain.
“Three people were there, and two people came out,” Sands said.
“One’s pointing at one, one’s pointing at the other.
“So that’s the unanswered question. Who actually did it?”
