Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that a 29-year-old Ridgewood resident has been convicted of manslaughter in the stabbing death of his female roommate, whom he killed in the Ridgewood, Queens apartment they shared in September of 2016.

District Attorney Katz said, “This was a horribly disturbing case. The defendant returned to the apartment he shared with his roommate late one night and stabbed her multiple times, causing her death. The knife sliced into her back and neck, puncturing her heart, lungs and a major artery.”

The District Attorney’s Office identified the defendant as Render Stetson-Shanahan, 29, of Stanhope Street in the Ridgewood section of Queens. Following a non-jury trial, Supreme Court Justice Richard L. Buchter today rendered a verdict of guilty of manslaughter in the second degree. Justice Buchter set sentencing for March 26, 2020, at which time Stetson-Shanahan faces up to 5 to 15 years in prison.

The District Attorney said that, according to the trial testimony, shortly before midnight on September 28, 2016, police responded to a 911 call about a man wearing only underwear and roaming the neighborhood with a knife. Police found the defendant back at his apartment on Stanhope Street. He was in his bed and bleeding from a self-inflicted wound to his right thigh. In the next room, 26-year-old Carolyn Bush was bleeding profusely from numerous stab wounds. The victim had been stabbed multiple times in her neck and torso. The puncture wounds caused massive injuries to her heart, lungs and severed an artery. Ms. Bush was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Assistant District Attorney Brian C. Hughes, a Section Chief in the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Brad A. Leventhal, Bureau Chief, Peter J. McCormack III, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief, John W. Kosinski and Kenneth M. Appelbaum, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.