"Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers," the actor said in a statement about E'Dena Hines, 33. 
 
 Morgan Freeman's 33-year-old step-granddaughter, E'Dena Hines, died Sunday morning in New York City from stab wounds, according to police. 
 
 Officers responded to a 911 call and found Hines lying down on West 162nd Street in front of her home at around 3 a.m., an NYPD spokesperson told People in a statement. Hines had been stabbed multiple times in her torso, police say. 
 
 Paramedics took Hines to Harlem Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. 
 
 A 30-year-old man at the scene was taken into custody by police, who took him to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Police are continuing to investigate. 
 
 In a statement released to The Hollywood Reporter, Freeman said about Hines: "The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer. Her friends and family were fortunate enough to have known what she meant as a person. Her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. May she rest in peace." 
 
 Hines is the granddaughter of Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, Freeman's first wife. The actor was married to Bradshaw from 1967 to 1979. ||||| An actress related by marriage to Morgan Freeman died on Sunday after she was found with multiple stab wounds in the street outside her Washington Heights apartment, the police said. 
 
 The woman, E’Dena Hines, 33, was discovered by police officers after they were called just before 3 a.m. to an address close to her apartment on West 162nd Street in Manhattan, the authorities said. She was taken to Harlem Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead. 
 
 Lamar Davenport, who the police said was her boyfriend, was taken into custody at the scene and hospitalized for a psychological evaluation, the authorities said. Mr. Davenport, 30, has since been arrested and charged with murder. 
 
 Ms. Hines’s grandmother was once married to Mr. Freeman, the Academy Award-winning actor. Ms. Hines had a part in one of his movies, playing a receptionist in “5 Flights Up,” which was released in May. 
 
 “The world will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer,” Mr. Freeman said in a statement released by his publicist on Sunday. 
 
 Ms. Hines’s career on screen was mostly limited to small roles like the one in “5 Flights Up” and a turn as a rude barista in an episode of the ABC hidden-camera series “What Would You Do?” 
 
 On her blog, she wrote that her acting career had left her feeling “unfulfilled,” and at one point, she returned to Memphis, her hometown. 
 
 But she had recently landed a role in an independent film and returned to New York. 
 
 “My dream has come true” and is just beginning, she wrote on July 7. ||||| A deviant drifter with a terrifying rap sheet that includes two sex attacks on elderly women was charged Thursday with the rape of a 73-year-old bird watcher in Central Park. 
 
 
 
 Three rookie cops caught Appalachian ex-con David Albert Mitchell, 42, strolling down an upper West Side street, and the victim later picked him out of a lineup. 
 
 
 
 The West Virginia native — who has been locked up most of his adult life — did not confess and asked for a lawyer. 
 
 
 
 But he was nabbed with the memory card from the victim’s camera, which he snatched after dragging her into the brush to beat and rape her Wednesday morning, police said. 
 
 CBS TV 
 
 “He’s clearly a violent, dangerous individual,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. 
 
 
 
 The disheveled suspect — covered in tattoos of warriors, dragons and the Grim Reaper — angrily spat at reporters as he was taken to Central Booking. 
 
 
 
 Hours later, he remained silent as he was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court and ordered held without bail. 
 
 
 
 Mitchell’s disturbing criminal history began when he was just 18 and charged with molesting and beating to death 87-year-old Annie Parks during a burglary in his hometown of Jenkinjones near the border of Kentucky and Virginia. 
 
 
 
 A jury acquitted him, and months later he was accused of raping a woman in her 70s during another break-in, the Charleston Gazette reported. 
 
 
 
 “He asked me to get him the best possible plea deal,” said Sid Bell, who was his lawyer at the time and is now a prosecutor. 
 
 Marc A. Hermann for New York Daily News 
 
 Mitchell pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery, was sentenced to 10 years and did about eight in state prison. 
 
 
 
 After his release, the ex-con was arrested at least twice more before being convicted of kidnapping in 2003 and sent back to prison for eight more years. 
 
 
 
 He was busted several times in the past two years for probation violations and petty crimes but didn’t serve any hard time before he left for New York. 
 
 
 
 James Keivom/New York Daily News 
 
 Mitchell’s brushes with the law “were always sexually driven,” his sister-in-law and ex-girlfriend Saretta Mitchell told The Associated Press. She said she was the victim in the 2003 case and was nearly sexually assaulted by the drunken predator when he dragged her from her home. 
 
 
 
 Investigators believe he arrived here three or four months ago and was sleeping in Central Park. And he soon found trouble again, sources said. 
 
 
 
 He threatened Ayrton Ferreria dos Santos, a performance artist known as the “Mayor of Strawberry Fields,” with a knife on Aug. 20, police said. 
 
 
 
 “He pulled a 6-inch shank on me,” dos Santos said. “It all happened over a joint.” 
 
 
 
 Michael Schwartz for New York Daily News 
 
 A week ago, Mitchell was masturbating in a section of the park called The Ramble when the elderly bird watcher inadvertently photographed him — triggering a scary encounter, Browne said. 
 
 
 
 “What are you doing?” the man demanded when he saw her camera. “Give me that.” 
 
 
 
 The woman, a professional photographer, ran off without reporting the incident. Then, on Wednesday morning, while she was trying out a new camera lens in the park, the same man pounced and began pummeling her, police said. 
 
 
 
 “Do you remember me?” he asked. Then he dragged her into the brush and brutalized her. 
 
 
 
 “This was a revenge attack,” the shaken and bandaged victim told Channel 7 Thursday night. 
 
 
 
 She said she would not let the attack deter her from her beloved hobby, vowing, “Nobody is going to take that pleasure away from me.” Detectives discovered the earlier photo of Mitchell on the woman’s hard drive and gathered surveillance photos of the attacker leaving the park. 
 
 
 
 The NYPD beefed up patrols near the park. Officers Enmanuel Rodriguez, Steven Ourelio and Sicelin Ortiz spotted Mitchell Wednesday evening at W. 77th St. and Amsterdam Ave. 
 
 
 
 “We had very alert rookie officers who recognized him,” Browne said. 
 
 
 
 After the victim identified him, the career criminal was charged with rape, a predatory sex act, a criminal sex act, robbery and felony assault. He was also charged with menacing in the knife incident last month. 
 
 New York Daily News 
 
 It was the first rape in the park this year, and Mayor Bloomberg said New Yorkers should not be fearful. “I feel so sorry for the woman,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing, but I think the overall history of safety in the park says it’s one of the safest places you can be.”But some parkgoers were still nervous. “I am appalled. I spend so much time in the park — that is really, really scary,” said Andy Young, 33, an actress who lives in midtown.Derrick Edwards, 29, a tour guide from Brooklyn, said he had no qualms about using the park. “This ain’t the ’70s. It’s so rare that it’s not a concern.”With Edgar Sandoval, Rich Schapiro, Tina Moore, and Jennifer H. Cunninghamtconnor@nydailynews.com ||||| NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Police say they finally caught up with a man wanted in connection with the death of a nurse in Queens, discovering the suspect on the other side of the country with another woman held captive in a Los Angeles hotel room. 
 
 Danueal Drayton, 27, of New Haven, Conn., was taken into custody Thursday. 
 
 The hunt began after 29-year-old nurse Samantha Stewart was found dead inside her bedroom at her family home in Springfield Gardens, Queens, on July 17. Police say Stewart suffered trauma to her head and neck. 
 
 “A lot of sorrow is in my heart,” her aunt, Ruby Dixon, told CBS2’s Tony Aiello after learning about Drayton’s arrest. “My niece was the best you ever could find in a human being.” 
 
 Police had been searching for the person responsible for Stewart’s murder and also another incident involving the rape of a 23-year-old woman that happened the month before in Gowanus, Brooklyn. 
 
 Both investigations led them to the same suspect, when the joint New York/New Jersey Police Task Force caught up with Drayton. 
 
 “There was a separate woman in a hotel room in California that was being held against her will,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea. 
 
 “Right after he commit a gruesome murder here and destroy my family, he went to California and just almost did the same thing,” Stewart’s father, Kenneth, said. “Thank God they catch him before he could destroy another family.” 
 
 When we captured Danuel Drayton in LA for the murder of Queens nurse Samantha Stewart, he had another victim held captive. He's off the streets but may have victimized others via online dating sites. Need help or have info? Call 800-577-TIPS/ sex crimes hotline 212-267-RAPE pic.twitter.com/iif7E9KuyA — Chief Dermot F. Shea (@NYPDDetectives) July 26, 2018 
 
 Authorities believe Drayton met both of those women on Tinder and their first meeting was in a public space. They say he also may have used other dating sites to meet potential victims. 
 
 “The common denominator in these two cases – one being a murder, one being a rape – is dating websites,” said Shea. “So this individual is known to us and it is believed by us that this individual uses dating web sites to meet women and then victimize these women.” 
 
 Police say Drayton was well known to police. He was arrested in June for allegedly choking an ex-girlfriend at Inwood Park in Nassau County. One July 1, his bail was set at $1,000. On July 5, a judge dropped the bail requirement, over the objection of the district attorney, and Drayton walked free. 
 
 He also has five prior arrests in his home state of Connecticut, including a strangulation arrest in 2011. 
 
 “I’m devastated by my loss of my daughter, but hearing this news now it really, really shocks me, throws me over the edge,” said Kenneth Stewart. 
 
 Police believe there may be more victims out there and are asking for anyone affected or who has information to come forward. 
 
 “Be careful. If you meet up with someone, tell somebody,” Dixon said. “Tell a family member, tell a friend. You don’t know who these monsters are.” 
 
 Stewart’s funeral is set for Saturday.
– The stepgranddaughter that Morgan Freeman helped raise was stabbed to death in New York City early yesterday, allegedly by a crazed boyfriend. Police have confirmed to People that 33-year-old E'Dena Hines was found outside her Manhattan home with multiple stab wounds around 3am. A witness who called 911 tells the New York Daily News that he witnessed the killing from his apartment and heard the attacker yell, "Get out, devils! I cast you out, devils, in the name of Jesus Christ! I cast you out!" Police sources tell the Daily News that the suspect is Lamar Davenport, Hines' 30-year-old boyfriend. Hines' grandmother was Jeanette Adair Bradshaw, Freeman's first wife. "I want to acknowledge the tremendous outpouring of love and support my family has received regarding the tragic and senseless passing of my granddaughter," Freeman said in a Facebook post. In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, he said the world "will never know her artistry and talent, and how much she had to offer" and "her star will continue to shine bright in our hearts, thoughts and prayers." Hines, who studied acting and had several minor film roles, had recently returned to New York City from Memphis for a role in an independent film, the New York Times reports. "My dream has come true and it's just beginning," she wrote on her blog.