A 95-year-old dementia patient was charged Wednesday with bludgeoning an elderly Holocaust survivor to death inside a Brooklyn nursing home — as prosecutors revealed grisly new details of the shocking crime.
Galina Smirnova, looking confused and frail in a wheelchair in court, was hit with murder and weapons charges and ordered held at the Bellevue Hospital jail ward as prosecutors described the bloody scene at the Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Coney Island for the first time.
Smirnova is accused of killing Nina Kravtsov, 89, with the pedal from her wheelchair Sunday night.
“The nursing assistant observed the victim laying on her bed with severe head injuries,” Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Ari Rottenberg said in court. “There was blood all over the room, and the victim or decedent was not responsive. And there is a bathroom private for that room, and at that time, it was observed that the defendant was in the bathroom.
“There was blood on the defendant’s gown and on her legs. The defendant was washing her hands in the bathroom sink,” he said. “There was a wheelchair in the room that had both leg and foot pedals removed. One of the pedals was on the floor in the room and there was blood covering that pedal. The other foot pedal had been discarded out of the window and was on the ground below.”
The prosecutor said Smirnova had only arrived at the nursing home on Friday, and was assigned to the same room, with Kravtsov as her roommate.
A nurse at the facility said the victim had been in bed sleeping when she made her rounds at 8:55 p.m. Sunday — but when the worker returned one hour she found blood splattered everywhere and Kravtsov motionless with a bloody gash to her head, Rottenberg said.
Kravtsov, who lost her entire family during the Holocaust, was rushed to NYU Langone Brooklyn Hospital, where she was pronounced dead after 5:30 a.m. Monday, prosecutors said.
Smirnova’s lawyer, Legal Aid attorney Erin Darcy, held off on requesting bail for her client before her next court appearance on Friday — which means the elderly accused killer will be held at Bellevue.
“I believe that we will be in a position in the very near future to present a robust bail application to the court on behalf of our client, once we can find a reasonable placement for her given her age and ultimately our interest in the humanity of that,” Darcy told Judge Orville Reynolds.
Prosecutors had asked that Smirnova be held without bail.
Meanwhile, the judge denied a request for a psychiatric examination, saying it was premature.
Kravtsov’s daughter, Lucy Flom, told The Post this week that her mom was 5-years old when she lost her family in the Holocaust, and later became a nurse in Ukraine before migrating to the US.
She lived in Brighton Beach with her husband and eventually moved into the nursing home following her husband’s death, Flom said.
“She sacrificed a lot,” she said of her mom. “She was a single mom. She had me when she was 18,” Flom said. “She came here to give me a good education,” she added. “She was a very dedicated mother.
“She was a nice lady. She was like many moms – very loving, caring, devoted.”
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