Maniac accused of fatally shoving NYC subway rider has long history of mental illness: sources

The unhinged man accused of randomly shoving a straphanger to his death in front of an East Harlem train has a troubled past, including a history of mental illness and a lengthy rap sheet, law enforcement sources said Tuesday.

Carlton McPherson, 24, of the Bronx, had a warrant out for his arrest in an open Brooklyn assault case at the time of Monday’s chilling attack at the East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue station — when cops say he pushed a 54-year-old man onto the tracks.

A northbound 4 train rolling into the station around 7 p.m. was unable to stop in time and fatally struck the man, whose name had not been released pending family notification.

McPherson was arrested and charged with murder on Monday.

McPherson’s most recent arrest before that was in January after he was accused of spitting on a woman on an L train, though that case was sealed, meaning the charges may have been dropped, according to the sources.

McPherson’s neighbors told The Post that he increasingly spiraled out of control after his grandfather died of COVID — leaving his elderly grandmother to try to reel him in.

“That kid’s been having a lot of problems lately with his grandmother,” neighbor Marco Paredes said. “A couple of weeks ago he tore out all the cable wires because his grandmother wouldn’t let him in. All the FVerizon wires, he tore off the wall.

“He ripped out the wires in his [17th] floor down to the 15th floor,” Paredes said. “The whole building had an outage.”

Tenants said McPherson was typically locked out of his grandmother’s apartment, sleeping on the roof or the hallway, and in a hallway closer during the winter months.

“He’s been a little off for a while,” another neighbor said. “I don’t know what went wrong. He went from calm little boy to being a little off about six years ago. He sits in the hallway and talks to himself.

“I avoid him,” she added. “I want to say I’m surprised — but I’m not surprised. I don’t catch the train. I’m scared for just this reason.”

Last April, McPherson — who was speaking incoherently — allegedly ran past security at Yankee Stadium into an area that is not open to the public, claiming he wanted to watch the game even though no one was playing at the time, sources said.

In June 2022, he became irate when his grandmother told him to do something with his clothing — prompting him to toss his garments down the incinerator, according to the sources.

When cops arrived, McPherson — who has bipolar disorder and was off his medication, according to his grandmother — was sitting on the roof landing in the stairwell, and refused to speak with cops, the sources said.

Back in 2016, McPherson was the subject of a “domestic incident report” involving failure to bring a male child to visit his mother, who had a legal visitation order, according to the sources.

His rap sheet also includes arrests for shoplifting and burglary, including on Sept. 30, when he was allegedly busted rifling through items in an office at the Aqueduct Racetrack, sources said.

An officer confronted him and pepper-sprayed him — but that didn’t stop McPherson from allegedly heading up to the roof, jumping down to the lower roof, and injuring his right leg, possibly breaking it, according to sources.

Earlier in September, he allegedly lifted his sweater and flashed an imitation gun in the elevator of a Brooklyn Macy’s, alarming another person riding inside, the sources said.

And on Sept. 2, he allegedly snatched $100 from the cash register from a business in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, according to the sources.

In late June, he was nabbed for allegedly shoplifting nearly $1,300 worth of items from the Kings Plaza Shopping Center, the sources said.

His Manhattan Criminal Court arraignment in connection to the subway shove was pending Tuesday.

At a press briefing Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams said there were six cops at the station at the time of the assault but noted that random and unpredictable attacks pose a challenge for police.

“Six cops. Platform, token booth. They were present,” Adams told reporters. “But when you’re dealing with a severe mental health crisis or if you want to participate in criminal behavior, we have now reached a point where there’s those that are so emboldened that they can keep doing their actions, that [the] uniform no longer means anything.

“Bad guys no longer fear the police,” the mayor added. “They’re emboldened to do whatever they want.”