A suspect in the death of Broadway singing coach Barbara Maier Gustern is in police custody and will be charged with manslaughter and assault.
Lauren Pazienza, 26, of Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, turned herself in to New York police today.Pazienza is awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.The news comes just a day after New York police classified Gustern’s death a homicide.
Gustern, 87, was heading toward a cab outside her Chelsea apartment on the evening of March 10 when she was pushed to the ground in what police believe to have been an unprovoked attack.
Gustern suffered severe head trauma and soon went into a coma. She died at New York’s Bellevue Hospital five days after the attack without regaining consciousness.Photos and video of the assailant, now believed to be Pazienza, were widely circulated by NYPD Crime Stoppers over the last week.Gustern, a singer and vocal coach whose students included Blondie’s Debbie Harry, avant-garde performer Diamanda Galas and the cast of Daniel Fish’s acclaimed 2019 Broadway revival of Oklahoma!, was a longtime fixture on the downtown cabaret scene.
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