Mom recalls Bronx stabbing victim’s last moments, rails against ‘lunatic’ neighbor charged with slay

The mother of a Bronx man stabbed to death by an unhinged neighbor told the Daily News she witnessed her son’s final moments — and tried to get between him and the woman accused of taking his life.

Victim John Welgoss’ mom described the alleged killer as a “lunatic” who moved into their Mount Hope apartment building seven or eight years ago.

“She slit his throat,” the grieving parent, Debra Welgoss, said of the alleged attacker, 60-year-old Jacqueline Ratliff. “We knew her. He used to hang out with her, and she’s just a f—ing lunatic.”

Other residents of the building described Ratliff as a problem neighbor, often drinking outside, begging for beer money and inviting unsavory characters into her 10th-floor apartment.

One neighbor, who was close to both parties but didn’t give her name, said the victim and Ratliff both struggled with substance abuse and had a contentious, at times fraught friendship.

John Welgoss, 32, lived with his mother on the seventh floor of the apartment building on Walton Ave. near E. 175th St.

On Saturday morning, tensions boiled over in the hallway outside Ratliff’s apartment, after the victim went with his eventual attacker to a nearby store.

“They went to the store. Came back. He gave her a beer, and she said to get out of my face. She pushed him. He said, ‘Don’t push me.’ She said, ‘I’ll do whatever the f— I want to.’ He goes, ‘Oh, yeah?’” recounted Debra Welgloss, 59.

“She ran into the kitchen. She grabbed a knife and they started fighting. I got in the middle and then walking out, she sliced him. That’s what happened.”

Debra Welgoss said as far as she knew, Ratliff hadn’t attacked her son before, and she didn’t know why the woman snapped.

“She has mental illness. I don’t know, I don’t care. All’s I know is my son was bleeding all over the f—ing place. She took it and she ran in the elevator — took the knife and left,” the mother said. “His eyes were open. I knew he was dead. She got his artery.”

The close neighbor said that the two often clashed and had an “odd sort of relationship” that seemed like it would end badly. John Welgoss often acted aggressively to the people around him, the neighbor said.

“It was bound to happen because there were times they would be really adamant to each other,” the neighbor said.

Ratliff had taken a dark turn recently, the person added.

“For the past few weeks, she’s been really odd. Really on the edge. I even stopped speaking to her, unfortunately,” the neighbor said. “Just the other few days ago she lashed out at my neighbor. … She wasn’t doing well at all.”

Cops arrested Ratliff and charged her with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. She awaited arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court as of Sunday evening.

“She better not come out because if I see her, I’m going to jail,” Debra Welgoss said. “She murdered him.”

Neighbor Leonara Gonzalez, 55, who lives on the seventh floor, said Debra Welgoss knocked on her door earlier that morning, seemingly happy but nervous that something might happen to her son.

“She was feeling something. I say, ‘Oh, my God.’ She was feeling her son going to die that day. She was so nervous. And she was cleaning the house, talking to me,” Gonzalez said. “She was [listening to] music, happy, cleaning.”

Gonzalez said she never saw John Welgoss arguing with Ratliff, but often saw her drinking outside or asking for money.

“He was nice and quiet all the time. All the time inside the house. I think he taking care of his mother and his dad. He would do everything for them. He was so quiet,” she said. “[Ratliff] pass the whole day outside drinking in the front of the building.”

Another neighbor, Kenny, 60, who lives down the hall from Ratliff, saw police on the scene Saturday but hadn’t heard about the killing.

“She killed somebody? Oh, my God!” he exclaimed. “When I moved in, they warned me about her. They told me, she’s always asking for money downstairs … God works in mysterious ways. The building is the way it was because of her. All the traffic coming in and out. All kind of people.”

He added, “I felt in my heart something was going to happen because she’s always in the elevator yelling at people and berating them and cursing them out.”