Victim found stabbed at South Hayward BART station was killed intervening in theft

HAYWARD, Calif. (KGO) -- The man who was killed in brutal stabbing on BART Tuesday died a Good Samaritan. BART confirmed the victim was attempting to stop the suspect from stealing another passenger's property.

The suspect is accused of fatally stabbing the Good Samaritan during a fight on a Warm Springs BART train. The train left the Bay Fair station, Tuesday afternoon. At around 1 p.m., BART Police started to receive calls about a fight in progress.

"The fight continued through our Hayward Station," Interim BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez said. "At which point a knife was introduced into the fight between two males."

South Hayward BART Station was closed for hours as a result of the deadly stabbing but has since reopened.

The suspect's violent behavior didn't stop there.

In the suspect's attempt to escape, he got off at the South Hayward station. He ended up a block away, at Elias Motors Inc. where salesman Steve Castro was showing a van to an elderly couple.

"Soon as I open it up, somebody grabbed my arm. I thought it was a customer," Castro explained. "But I looked to the side. It was some weird guy with no shirt on. I'm like, what the hell?"

At that point, Castro had no clue about the homicide scene unfolding on BART.

He said the suspect then grabbed the keys to the van and tried to take off.

Castro wasn't giving up so easily.

"I started hitting him, fighting with him. He started hitting me too," he said. "I hit him a couple times and we got in the middle of the street, and all of a sudden a car stopped."

Castro said the suspect attempted to get into another vehicle, but the fight over his keys continued.

He said the suspect was pleading, "Don't hurt me. Don't kill me."

"I let him go. After that, he started walking. Just walked right over to that little spot over there at the bus station," Castro said as he pointed to an area across the street from his workplace. "He sat there. I called the cops. The cops were already called, but he waited 'til they got there."

In the video you'll see only on ABC7 News, cameras captured the moment the man's violent afternoon came to an end.

Our crews spotted a shirtless man handcuffed inside a car and five potential witnesses were brought in patrol cars one by one to come by and look at the man- in what appeared to be identifying him.

This happened a block away from the South Hayward BART station, along Mission Boulevard.

Thanks to a description police received from witnesses, police were able to make an arrest.

BART police officers were going through all the trash cans in the Arco Mini Mart and searching the station for evidence and walked away with plastic bags full of whatever they found.

The witnesses declined to comment saying police had asked them to not comment until "after it was over."

ABC7 News asked Castro, what he would have done differently if he knew about the manhunt.

He said, "If I had known, in my head, it probably would've been a different story. I probably would've just said, 'Okay, take it. Go ahead, leave."

As of 10 p.m. on Tuesday, the Alameda County Coroner had not released the murder victim's name