ALLEGED SERIAL KILLER LUCIUS CRAWFORD FOUND IN MT. VERNON NY WITH DEAD WOMEN IN HIS BED

LUCIUS CRAWFORD

A violent con with a 40-year history of stabbing women confessed to killing two women in 1993 after cops burst into his Mount Vernon apartment and found another woman dead in his bed, cops said.

Lucius Crawford, 60, a career criminal with a particular hatred of women, was busted Tuesday just as NYPD detectives zeroed in on him in two cold-case slayings.

But detectives didn’t expect to uncover a fresh homicide when they showed up to question him — the body of Crawford’s girlfriend, Tanya Simmons, 41, was found on a bed in the one-room pad.

MT. VERNON MAYOR ERNIE DAVIS HOLDING PRESS CONFERENCE ABOUT ALLEGED SERIAL KILLER LUCIUS CRAWFORD

The New Rochelle resident had been stabbed nine times in the chest, cops said.

“Lucius Crawford will be etched in the history of Mount Vernon with the dubious distinction of being the closest thing we have had to a serial killer,” said Mayor Ernest Davis.

During questioning, Crawford copped to stabbing Learonda Shealy to death in a Yonkers stairwell on Sept. 13, 1993, and fatally knifing Nella West on Oct. 20, 1993. West’s body had been dumped in Riverdale, the Bronx. She had been stabbed repeatedly and her skull and eye socket were crushed

Crawford’s arrest left cops fearful he is responsible for other unsolved slayings — including the 11 victims — five of whom were prostitutes — found buried last year in Suffolk County.

“You never know. Let’s hope it’s him,” said Lynn Barthelemy, whose daughter, Melissa, was found in a shallow grave in Gilgo Beach.

But Long Island homicide detectives warned there “does not appear to be any reason to suspect that Crawford had any involvement.”

Regardless, Crawford’s rap sheet shows he’s left a trail of blood beginning in 1973 in Charleston, S.C., where he slashed four women who blew him off.

He served three years and promptly stabbed three more women, earning a 24-year sentence.

Weeks after his release in 1991, he beat up a girlfriend in White Plains. And in 1995, he earned a 20-year sentence for stabbing a co-worker.

During a parole hearing in 2006, Crawford explained why he was violent toward women.

“Maybe the way they act, I guess,” he said.

Shockingly, Crawford was paroled in 2008.

The arrest of Crawford might not have happened but for a lucky break. Bronx Homicide Squad Detective Christopher Boerke had a conversation with a retired detective about West’s murder. Then Boerke and Malcolm Reiman of the 50th Precinct had crime scene DNA analyzed — and it matched Crawford’s, cops said.

That’s what sent the detectives to Crawford’s apartment in Mount Vernon Tuesday.

Crawford was nowhere to be found, but Simmons’ cold body was discovered in his bed.

Cops found Crawford — who had managed to remove an electronic monitoring device from his ankle — walking about a mile and a half from his apartment.

Mount Vernon Police Chief Carl Bell said Crawford confessed to killing Simmons during an argument over a cell phone.