A 35-year-old father was stabbed to death Oct. 20 in North Fordham by a close friend, neighbors said.

Orlando Garcia, 46, was arrested and charged in the death of Luis Fermin, a Dominican car mechanic who was living on Briggs Avenue with his wife and two small children.

Fermin and Garcia were playing dominos for money in a Marion Avenue house on Saturday afternoon when an argument erupted, witnesses said. Garcia allegedly stabbed Fermin once. He was then taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, police said. Garcia was arrested an hour later and charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.

Area residents said Fermin and Garcia were often seen together and had been friends for years. Elvis Almonte, owner of a clothing store on the block where the murder occurred, heard that the two worked at the same auto repair shop on Jerome Avenue.

Fermin often fixed the cars of people on the block in his spare time, Almonte said. Fermin and his wife had a 3-year-old son together, Fransue, as well as her son Carlo, 5, from a previous relationship.  

Tania Marte, who lives on the same floor as the victim, said Fermin’s wife knocked on her door at 11 p.m. the night of the stabbing, crying and saying that her husband was dead. She took his body to the Dominican Republic to be buried this week, Marte said.

To many in the area, the crime was unfathomable. "They were supposed to be very close friends, and they were just playing dominos," said Jose Balbi, Marte’s husband. "It’s mysterious that something like this would happen."

Balbi speculated that both men were drinking that day. "The few times I saw him, I saw a person who liked to drink," he said. Fermin had only been living in his Briggs Avenue apartment a few months, Balbi said.

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