A Gresham man already accused in an unprovoked stabbing of a homeless man in February is now charged with the murder of another homeless man two months earlier.
Antony Kassab, 20, has been indicted on charges of second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon in the fatal stabbing of Cody Funk in December.
The morning after Christmas, Gresham police found Funk, 35, dead on a sidewalk near the busy intersection of Southeast Division Street and 190th Avenue. He died of multiple stab wounds, an autopsy found. Funk was homeless at the time he was killed.
Kassab has been in custody since late February, charged with attempted murder and first-degree assault in the Feb. 9 stabbing of David McQuown, 49.
In that case, police spotted Kassab on video surveillance “essentially stalking his prey,” walking around a parking lot near Southeast Stark Street and 183rd Avenue for roughly 10 minutes and watching McQuown seated on a picnic table before Kassab stabbed him in an unprovoked assault, according to Brandon Riffel, a Multnomah County deputy district attorney.
Kassab was checking to see if any cars were passing before he walked up to McQuown and then started to stab him with a knife sometime after 3 a.m., Riffel wrote in a court filing. The two men didn’t know each other and the assault was a “completely random attack on an innocent civilian,” Riffel wrote.
McQuown remained in critical condition last month with a stab wound to his temple that punctured his skull and three stab wounds to the torso, according to the prosecutor. Police found a black fixed-blade knife in the area.
Using a covert camera placed on a utility pole in the 16800 block of Southeast Stark Street, police spotted a suspect matching the description of McQuown’s attacker and tracked his movements to Kassab’s apartment in the 23900 block of Southeast Stark Street, according to Riffel. Police arrested Kassab on Feb. 22 in McQuown’s assault.
On Friday, police obtained a new indictment against Kassab in the Dec. 26 killing of Funk.
“This suspect targeted particularly vulnerable members of the community,” Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg said in a statement. “His behavior has no place in Gresham. Our detectives worked tirelessly to seek justice for Mr. Funk and Mr. McQuown.”
Kassab has pleaded not guilty to the February stabbing but he has not appeared in court yet on the new murder indictment, according to court records. He remains in custody at Multnomah County’s Inverness Jail.
In a late March letter to the court, Kassab wrote from jail that he wants an evaluation for schizophrenia and distrusts his court-appointed lawyer. The court so far has not sent him for any mental health evaluation, according to court records.
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