Friends stunned after Upper West Side mom, 2 baby sons stabbed to death by well

Devastated friends of the knife-wielding Upper West Side dad who killed his wife and their two young boys in a gruesome murder-suicide remembered an upbeat man often seen walking the neighborhood streets with his sons.

“I saw him the last time, he was on 80th St. and he’s joking,” said Alfonso Barrera, 84, whose son was close with Edison Lopez, on Tuesday. “He’s like joking all the time ... He’s (like) part of my family. His wife was a nice girl, beautiful. Very nice.”

“I’m feeling like I’m dead. I’m feeling like my family ...” continued Barrera, his voice trailing off and his thought unfinished.

Police believe Lopez, 41, fatally stabbed his wife Alexandra, 40, and two sons Lucian, 3, and 1-year-old Calvin, before slitting his own throat inside their home on W. 86th St. near Riverside Drive. The killer used multiple knives in the attack, police said.

A neighborhood worker said he saw Lopez walking every morning with his two sons, the baby in a a stroller and the 3-year-old at his side, with the wife sometimes joining the happy trio.

“I’m in shock because I can’t picture this man doing this,” said the 44-year-old man, who declined to give his name. “I’m lost for words. Every time I seen him, he was happy. They were always together.”

Their bodies were discovered about 2:50 p.m. Monday inside their fourth-floor apartment, with the throats of the two parents slit and the two little boys brutally stabbed.

Lopez worked as the building superintendent, a job handed down from his father when the older man left to care for another property, said neighbors.

Local hairstylist Patricia Romain came to the building Tuesday morning to leave a bouquet of four sunflowers and two toys cars — one red, one yellow — on the front stoop.

“I’ve lived here over 20 years,” she said. “Just to think this was going on just a few blocks away, it’s tragic. There’s no words.”

Lopez’s father came to visit his grandchildren earlier Monday but was unable to get into the apartment, neighbors and police sources said. When he forced open the door, he found blood on the floor and called police.

Lopez’s body was found in bed while Alexandra was found dead in the apartment hallway, the sources said.

Lucian and Calvin were discovered in the living room. At first, cops identified the children as a boy and a girl, but it was later determined that the victims were both boys.

Each parent had their throat slit and the children had been repeatedly stabbed, cops said.

No note was found and Lopez had no criminal record, police sources said. Cops were never called to the apartment to settle any domestic disputes either, the source added.

Neighbors were shocked by the grisly scene, especially since the family appeared to be doing well.

Lopez, they said, had just gotten another job and was preparing to move his family out of the city.

“They seem very happily married and then they had this lovely family and now they’re moving to Westchester and everything was perfect,” said longtime tenant Lynne Allen, who watched Lopez grow up in the building. “(Lopez) was my cat-sitter when he was a young teen and just a great guy. Great, lovely family and adorable little children.”