The Murders Down the Hall

393 POWELL STREET WAS A PEACEFUL HOME UNTIL RESIDENTS STARTED DYING IN BRUTAL, MYSTERIOUS WAYS.

- Greg Donahue

WHEN MYRTLE MCKINNEY first moved into the Carter G. Woodson Houses in 2004, she felt lucky to be there. The complex is one of only 38 public-housing developments in New York City reserved for seniors, and the waiting list for a one-bedroom can stretch on for years.

A Jamaican emigrant in her early 70s, she had raised seven kids working as a housekeeper in Florida and the Bahamas before relocating to Brooklyn to live with her daughter. By the time her application was approved, she was desperate for a place of her own.

After settling into apartment 6M, McKinney quickly jumped into the bustling social scene enjoyed by the development’s 450 residents. She joined a knitting circle in the first-floor senior center and spent her mornings relaxing with friends amid the rows of shade-dappled benches in the courtyard out front. In the afternoons, her neighbor in 6E, an easygoing man in his early 70s named Leon Gavin, whom everyone called “Music Man,” liked to DJ dance parties in the courtyard from a small speaker hooked up to his mobility scooter. It was like a middle-school dance, one resident said: girls on one side, boys on the other.