The 28-year-old jogger brutally stabbed on a Brooklyn promenade Friday night had spoken with her father just minutes earlier, law-enforcement sources told The Post, offering new and unsettling details in the still-baffling case.
Katie Suarez, a bank teller who has been declared brain dead and remains on life support at NYU Langone Hospital following the apparent random attack, initially met her mother shortly after leaving work at about 6:30 p.m., sources said.
The two met near the TD Bank branch where Suarez worked, in the Bay Parkway shopping plaza in Gravesend. Sources said the meeting was a family routine after Suarez finished her shift. Her father typically joined them, but he was running late that evening.
Suarez had changed out of her bank uniform and into running clothes. She gave her work clothes to her mother to hold, then set off alone along the Belt Parkway, heading west toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, sources said.
The path begins at Bay Parkway and runs to 14th Avenue and Bay 8th Street, according to sources.
Suarez’s father eventually joined her mother. At about 8 p.m., he called their daughter — a Brooklyn College Kingborough Community College graduate and native of El Salvador, according to her LinkedIn profile — to discuss where they would meet, sources said.
He told Suarez that he and her mother were still near her workplace and asked where she was, sources said.
Suarez replied that she was roughly a half-mile away, or about a five-minute jog for her. Sources said nothing seemed unusual during the conversation.
When Suarez failed to arrive at the agreed meeting place a short time later, her father called again. This time, she did not answer, sources said.
Her parents split up to search for her. The father ultimately found Suarez near Bay 17th Street and Shore Parkway, stabbed twice in the neck — once on each side. He frantically asked a passer-by to call 911, sources said.
Investigators believe the stabbing was random. Sources said there was no indication of a sex-crime motive or robbery, noting that Suarez’s pink cellphone and jewelry were still in her possession.
Despite her injuries, Suarez managed to run approximately 100 feet before collapsing, sources said.
Images from the bloody scene showed blood spattered across a nearby guardrail.
“It’s very sad,” a neighbor said Saturday. “I’m sad for everybody, but this is close. It’s too much right now. It’s a mad world.”
Suarez had worked as a teller at the bank branch for more than five years, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Sources said Suarez frequently jogged along the path, which offers sweeping views of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and Staten Island.
The waterfront route is popular with walkers, runners, cyclists and fishermen.
Police have launched a manhunt for the attacker.
Suarez’s family declined to comment Sunday at their Brooklyn home, where a Salvadoran flag was visible in the window.
Additional reporting by Fenix Suriel