By Jeremy Walsh
As police continued to search for the boyfriend of an influential artist in the Long Island City community who was found stabbed in her apartment Saturday, acolleague remembered her with great fondness.
Police in the 108th Precinct responded to 43-35 10th St. around 11 a.m. Saturday after receiving a call about an unresponsive woman. There they found Susan Woolf, 49, with packing tape around her neck and multiple stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Woolf served on the advisory board of the nonprofit Long Island City Artists, a group dedicated to helping the neighborhood’s creative community find work space.
Chris Vilardi, director of Long Island City Artists, said he met Woolf less than a year ago at an open studio event where they shared space.
“I realized that she was bright, intelligent, driven, a fabulous artist, so I asked her to be on the board,” he said. “She’s irreplaceable. She just had a drive and she had an intelligence. No matter what problem was put before us, she could think of a brilliant solution to it. She was really fast on her feet and she knew how to get stuff done.”
Police are seeking Woolf’s boyfriend, 43-year-old Tigran Tambiev, as a person of interest in the case. He has “fled to parts unknown,” police said. No arrests had been made Monday afternoon, police said.
Tambiev is 5-foot-8, 145 pounds and has green eyes and brownish blond hair that extends past his ears, police said. He has a cut under his left eye that extends about 2 inches to his cheek, police said.
He was last seen wearing a black waist-length jacket, blue jeans and boots, police said.
Detectives scoured the block Monday, speaking to store owners in the hopes of retrieving surveillance footage.
“I thought they were actually filming,” said Rob Cano, owner of RCano Events, a catering company across the street. He said the worst he had seen on the block in six years were bad auto accidents.
On her Web site, Woolf described herself as a “public artist” whose works range from bronze castings to filling cracks in a sidewalk with brightly colored leaves.
“I observe how a place joins or collides with environmental, visual and social patterns,” she wrote. “I make sculptures describing place to accentuate the beauty in every location and build bridges between people and their surroundings.”
The NYPD asked anyone with information about the murder to call 1-800-577-8477, log on to nypdcrimestoppers.com or text tips to 274637 and then enter TIP577.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
