July 6, 2005 -- A racist ex-con confessed that he fatally stabbed a beloved mother of two at a White Plains mall because he wanted "to kill a white person."
"She was not innocent. She was white," convicted rapist Phillip Grant confessed in a chilling videotaped statement to cops that was played in White Plains City Court yesterday ? the same day victim Concetta Russo Carriero was laid to rest.
The 43-year-old homeless man told cops he had never laid eyes on Russo Carriero, 56, before he stabbed her in the chest twice last Wednesday on the seventh level of the Galleria mall garage.
"All I knew was she had blond hair and blue eyes, and she had to die . . . I didn't care, as long as she was white," he said.
"I wanted to kill someone who represented the white lifestyle."
Grant said he became a racist after his July 2003 release from Sing Sing, where he spent 24 years for three Bronx rapes and for attacking another inmate with a pitchfork.
People in White Plains called him "rape boy" and "n- - - - -," he said.
As a result, he said, he was fighting a race war ? and his only regret was that he didn't know anything about biological weapons.
Grant said he was prepared to die for killing Russo Carriero, a legal secretary who worked at a law firm across the street.
"It's not about the woman. It's not about rape. It's not about nothing of that," he said.
"There's a lot of white people that really need to die. I don't give a f - - - what public opinion is about that. They can go f - - - themselves. These people are sick, and they are getting away with it.
"I can't be around white people. I'm scared of white people," he added. "They forced me into a position where I'm racist.
"It was not a criminal motive. I'm really, really fighting a war on being attacked," he said.
Asked if he would kill again, Grant answered yes.
"My only regret is that I didn't have the means to do more," he said.
Judge Eric Press ordered Grant held without bail on second-degree murder charges pending a grand-jury hearing.
Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro said she would charge Grant with murder as a hate crime if the panel thought it was appropriate.
That would mean the ex-con would face a penalty of 20 years to life instead of 15 years to life.
After his parole, Grant moved to a homeless shelter at the Westchester County Airport but was kicked out last April because he wouldn't follow the rules.
Instead, he spent his nights sleeping at a drop-in shelter at the airport, being bused each morning to White Plains, where he roamed the mall.
Grant said he was walking past Carriero when she angered him by the way she opened her car door.
"This lady did that s - - - with the door," he said. "She pushed the door open, almost hit me with it. If she wouldn't have did that to me, I would have walked past her."
Grant said he grabbed her by the arm and held the knife to her throat, but she didn't scream.
A man walked nearby and he lowered the knife, which he had stolen from a department store, but the man didn't see anything.
He claimed he lowered the knife so she would think he wasn't paying attention and would try to knock the knife out of his hand, making it easier to stab her in the chest.
Now, I don't want to offend any Afro American members on the site, nor start a race war, but I do have to ask : WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE IN WHITE COMMUNITY?????
Could you imagine if it was a white man who raped and stabbed a 56 year old black woman because he "felt like killing a black person". Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, and everyone else would be marching from one end of NY to the other. The guy would be on death row without a trial.
Anyway, I hope this District Attorney up in white plains has the balls to ask for the death penalty and give this psyco what he so justly deserves. I'll even volunteer to flip the switch.
It not only shames me that there are people like this roaming around this great city, but it is frightening too. Imagine if a wackjob like this got his hands on a gun or took the time to build a pipe bomb or something. I'm not ready to check out just cause some kook may think I "represent the white lifestyle."
i've got three kid's, that want nothing to do with being white, because it's not "kool" anymore i grew up in an all black neighborhood, the high school i went to was 85% black, 12% hispanic, 3% white. i know what racism is!! (ya gotta remember this was the late 70's, right after martin luther king, and all the race riot's in CHI and LA and everywhere else.) if i heard "white boy" or "honkey" or "white trash" once i heard it a million time's! i went to Proviso East H.S. maywood IL so if everybody would jusy quit bitchin, and cryin, and get past all this black, white,!! and just start treatin each other decent, and equal! and equal mean's just that EQUAL!! not giving one group a leg up, so to speak to get even for the past. that goes for gender too!! i treat everybody i come in contact with on a person to person basis. i'm not gonna respect you, because you're black, i'm not gonna respect you, because you're white, and i'm not gonna respect you because you're a woman. i don't ask respect for my color, or gender. i will respect you however, if you're a decent person. what's the complication??? let's get it together people!!!! oh, and if anybody want's to debate this, i got nothin but time!!!
), and everybody saw that he was clearly insane.
executed