Tourist Killed as Gang Mugs Family in N.Y.

A young tennis buff visiting New York to watch the U.S. Open was stabbed to death on a subway platform when he tried to protect his mother from a gang of young muggers, police said Monday.

“The lady was holding the son in her arms with a knife in his chest,” a bystander said.

Brian Watkins, 22, of Provo, Utah, was stabbed once during the robbery Sunday evening in midtown Manhattan. He was chasing his family’s attackers when he collapsed on the subway station platform; he died 40 minutes later at a hospital.

Members of the family were “huge tennis buffs,” a friend said, and the trip to the Open at the National Tennis Center in Queens was an annual event.

The family’s Mormon bishop, David G. (Doc) Hansen, said Brian Watkins was a tennis star at Provo High School and went to Idaho State University on a tennis scholarship. In addition, he taught the sport at a club in Provo, where his parents, Sherwin and Karen, are ardent tennis players.

Police said the family, including son Todd and his wife, Michelle, were waiting for a train in the station at 53rd Street and 7th Avenue to go to Tavern on the Green in Central Park, just two stops away.

About 10:20 p.m., they were approached by about half a dozen young men, one carrying a knife, another a box cutter. They sliced open Sherwin Watkins’ pants and took a money clip containing about $200 and credit cards, and they punched his wife in the face.

Todd and Brian interceded, but one of the men stabbed Brian.

Transit police spokesman Al O’Leary said that, with help from witnesses, police tracked two suspects to the Roseland Ballroom just blocks from the subway station and recovered a knife believed to be used in the attack. No one had been arrested by Monday afternoon.

Sherwin Watkins was treated at a hospital for a cut to the back of his leg and released. His wife was treated for a cut on the mouth.

Sharon Sandgren, a family friend in Provo, described Brian Watkins as “an easy going, soft-spoken guy. He wasn’t a violent person. If he was going to get in a fight, something would have really had to provoke him.”