In a Manhattan courtroom last week, prosecutors laid out a chilling pattern of behavior they say claimed three lives. The woman at the center of it all, 38-year-old Tabitha Bundrick of Washington Heights, is accused of luring men with the promise of sex and drugs, only to rob them once they were unconscious. For three of those men, prosecutors say, the encounters ended in death.
She Allegedly Killed Three Men in a Ten Month Span
Bundrick, already serving a federal sentence on related charges, was arraigned Wednesday in New York State Supreme Court on three counts of murder. Prosecutors say she killed 42-year-old Mario Paullan, 39-year-old Miguel Angel Navez Ramirez, and 34-year-old Abrihan Rofer Fernandez Rodriguez over a ten-month span between 2023 and 2024.
A Pattern of Deadly Encounters
In April 2023, Bundrick approached Paullan and another man, offering sex in exchange for money, and led them to a vacant apartment she had broken into on West 159th Street. There, she shared drugs that investigators say were laced with fentanyl. One man survived, waking the next morning to find his belongings stolen. Paullan never woke up. Months later, in September, Bundrick allegedly struck again. This time, prosecutors say, she met Navez on the street and went back to his apartment, where she again offered drugs. Three days later, his brother found him dead, his belongings gone.
Bundrick Was Caught on CCTV
A Ring home security camera hangs from the side of a Fayetteville home.
In February of this year, Bundrick allegedly lured Fernandez home after chatting outside his building. Hours later, security footage captured her leaving with several large bags. Fernandez was found dead inside his apartment. When police arrested Bundrick in March, they say they found items belonging to her victims in her apartment, including four pairs of sneakers traced back to Fernandez.
A Life Marked By Struggle
A woman cleans out and prepares a crack pipe to use at a homeless camp on North Clinton Avenue in Rochester on Sept. 6, 2024.
In court filings, Bundrick’s defense has painted a very different picture of her life and intentions. Born and raised in Washington Heights, Bundrick endured poverty and sexual abuse from a young age. Her attorney, Kristoff Williams, said her intellectual functioning declined amid years of drug use and exploitation. “She was not some criminal mastermind targeting men,” Williams argued. “The men who overdosed were unintended victims swept up in her spiral of self-destruction.” Bundrick herself expressed remorse in a handwritten letter before her federal sentencing earlier this year, writing: “I know there’s no excuse for what I did… I deeply regret every decision I made and I’m determined to use this experience as a turning point.”
This Is A Part Of A Larger Trend
The case against Bundrick comes amid a broader reckoning in New York over robberies tied to drugging schemes. In recent years, prosecutors have pursued multiple cases where victims—often targeted outside bars—were drugged, robbed, and in some instances, killed. In this case, though, prosecutors argue Bundrick wasn’t part of a larger ring but acting on her own. Still, the impact of her actions reverberates. Families sat in court Wednesday as the charges were read, mourning lives lost in ways that feel both personal and systemic—a story about crime, addiction, and vulnerability in one of the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods. Bundrick is due back in court later this fall.
