Queens mum Orsolya Gaal spotted alive in backyard before body found

A mother of two was last seen in her backyard and enjoying a night out before she was found dead inside a duffel bag.

The New York mum found dead in a hockey duffel bag spent some of her final hours puttering around her yard and enjoying a night out — before video caught a mysterious figure lugging her makeshift casket down the street.

Cops are now trying to piece together how Orsolya Gaal, 51, went from a well-to-do, seemingly typical stay-at-home married mum of two to slay victim.

“It’s a mystery,” an NYPD official told theNew York Post on Sunday.

“Now it’s a question of piecing together everything she did that night.”

The source said that during Ms Gaal’s final hours Friday she went out with friends.

“We’re pulling video and receipts from those places,” the source said.

The victim ended up returning home before midnight, another law-enforcement source said.

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A neighbour said he saw Orsolya Gaal in her backyard on Friday. Picture: orsolya.gaal.9/Facebook.

“(Then) around 4.30am (Saturday), you see somebody rolling this [duffel bag] down the sidewalk from multiple cameras,’’ the high-ranking NYPD source said.

“(Cops) actually traced it backward from the scene to the house,” the source said, referring to a blood trail from the bag.

“She knew the people she was out with,’’ the source added of the victim. “We’re talking to them. We also have to figure out, did she meet some mysterious stranger along the way?”

Detectives have found no sign that the house had been broken into. Cops believe the attack took place inside by someone Ms Gaal knew, the second law-enforcement source noted.

The slaying was believed to be driven by anger due to the number of stab wounds on Ms Gaal’s body, according to a high-ranking police official.

Cops are now trying to piece together how Orsolya Gaal became a victim of the grisly crime. Picture: orsolya.gaal.9/Facebook

A large contingent of police officers was back at the home, where crime-scene tape surrounded it, about 6pm. Sunday.

Neighbours of Ms Gaal — whose body was discovered by a dog-walker around 8am Saturday, less than a mile from her upscale home — said they were shocked by the violence.

“I saw her (Friday) in her backyard,” said John Blankson, who lives next to the family’s stately Tudor-style home.

“We share a common backyard with (her) dog,’’ the resident said, apparently referring to an adorable little brown pooch the woman posed with in a slew of Facebook photos on her page.

“(Saturday) morning, we were like, ‘Why can’t we hear the dog this morning?’ It’s super shocking,” Mr Blankson said.

“They were a normal family,” he added.

Orsolya Gaal’s body was discovered by a dog-walker around 8am. Saturday. Picture: orsolya.gaal.9/Facebook.

Ms Gaal’s body was found by a resident who was walking his two hounds in nearby Forest Park when the Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs latched onto the scent coming from the duffel bag.

The NYPD said Sunday that surveillance footage from the area captured “an unknown individual” dragging a wheeled duffel bag from the direction of Ms Gaal’s home.

The hockey bag containing her corpse was discovered about four hours after the person appeared on the footage, and cops followed the blood trail from it to the side door of Ms Gaal’s Juno Street home, authorities said.

When police got to the house, officers found Ms Gaal’s 13-year-old son on the top floor of the home, authorities said.

“He stated he lives at the location but does not know where she is,’’ cops said in a statement.

The boy was taken into custody to be interviewed and later released, law-enforcement sources said.

The high-up NYPD source added to The Post that detectives don’t believe the boy left the house overnight.

Neighbours said the youngster had been scheduled to have his Bar Mitzvah a few weeks ago but that the family had to cancel the event because his dad contracted COVID-19.

Orsolya Gaal with her husband, Howard Klein and two children. Picture: orsolya.gaal.9/Facebook.

Ms Gaal’s husband, businessman Howard Klein, was reportedly in Portland with the couple’s 17-year-old son on a college hunt at the time she was murdered, according to social-media posts.

Neighbours said Mr Klein wanted his oldest boy to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, his ama mater.

Mr Klein told The Post on Saturday that he was on his way home, while repeatedly saying the family’s lives “are at stake”.

“There are concerns about our safety,” he said. “Our lives are at risk.”

Police said they previously responded to a 911 call at the house after Mr Klein reported his wife missing May 29, 2020. The husband later told the cops his wife had been found.

The couple’s older son also went missing in 2004 but was later found, too, the sources said.

It was unclear if Mr Klein and the boys were at home Sunday or if he and his oldest son had yet been questioned by police from the Forest Hills station house.

A man who may have been Mr Klein answered the door at the house Sunday but declined comment to The Post.

In a since-deleted tweet announcing his recent out-of-state trip with his son, Klein also made a pitch for hedge-funder Bill Browder’s book about Vladimir Putin.

“Just landed Portland OR before evaluating Ann Arbor again with my 17-year-old son,” Klein wrote. “Highly recommend ‘Freezing Order’ @Billbrowder a man I’ve followed closely and admired since I started on Wall Street in 1997 broking EMEA & Russian equities to hedge funds like Hermitage.”

The book is subtitled A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath.

A neighbour described Gaal as pretty calm and sociable. Picture: orsolya.gaal.9/Facebook.

Mr Blankson’s wife, Nicola, said Ms Gaal and her family had lived in the leafy neighbourhood for about eight or nine years.

She described Gaal as “pretty calm, sociable.

“She was out there living her life and making sure her kids were well-looked-after, like any mother would,” Nicola said. “This is the last thing I’d expect to wake up to.”

Local Susan Ram added, “I was just watching Criminal Minds and it’s like that.

“This is (a) TV psychopath thing.”

Another area resident who would only give his name as Rick called the whole ordeal “horrifying”.

“I can’t even understand how terrifying this is,” he said. “It’s very unusual to see this. I don’t know how this could happen around here.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.

Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Joe Marino and Georgett Roberts