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Who is Orsolya Gaal’s accused killer David Bonola?
The handyman paramour charged Thursday in the brutal stabbing death of Queens mom Orsolya Gaal is a married dad of two — who used to leave “creepy” love notes for baristas at his local Starbucks, The Post has learned.
David Bonola – who carried out an on-and-off affair with his alleged victim for the last two years – was a regular at the Austin Street ♎coffee shop in Forest Hills and left female staffers so startled by his advances, they called the cops on him numerous times, a former worke𒐪r claimed.
“He would come up to us and ask for coffees and tell us that we looked pretty and make comments about how we look,” former barista Oliwia Pikulinski, 21, told The Post by phone Thursday.
“He was creepy, he stalked people… It was known. Everyone knew he was a weird individual, especially in the Starbucks on Austin Street,” said Pikulinski, who worked at the location for three years before quitting five months ago.
Bonola — whose estranged wife and children also live in Queens, according to police sources — would also “drop in the tip jar love notes and songs that he would make about us,” said Pikulinski.
“He even went as far as proposing to two of us, which is super unsettling because of how weird the interactions were,” she said.
He was at the coffee shop multiple times a week and always ordered the same items – a dark roast pour over and a lemon loaf or banana nut loaf, the former worker noted. ಞ;
In between his cups of Joe, the 44-year-old would frequently proposition female workers, handing them a note and a piece of jewelry as he asked them to be with him, according to Pikulinski.&n🍸bsp;
Once, he penned a love letter and put it in the tip jar for one of Pikulinski’s coworkers — and then wrote her name on his headphones, which he wore while sitting in the cafe “facing us towards the register,” she said.
The💞 Richmond Hills resident, who works as a heating and air conditioning repairman, would also ask the staffers “personal questions” such as their ages, birthdays and where they lived and went to school, Pikulinksi said.
“It was personal information that a customer should never ask,” she said.
“I’m speechless that it was him after all the creepy incidents that happened and how unsettling he made everyone feel, especially the females I worked with and even the customers in the lobby. It’s crazy to think about.”
Frequentl𒀰y, the baristas would call the police for assistance but by the time they arrived,🎃 he was long gone so they took down reports and left, the woman claimed.
An NYPD spokesperson𓆉 said there are harassment complaints on file for the location but nothing that matches Pikulinski’s claims.
The curly-haired murder suspect, who bears a striking resemblance to Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, allegedly took up with the also-married Gaal, 51, after doing several jobs at her family’s comfortable Tudor-Style home on Juno Street, police sources said.
They had re-sparked their relationship earlier this month but broke up again, leading Bonola to come to Gaal’s home early Saturday morning to chat things out, N🍌YPD Chief Julie Morrill, who led the investigation, told reporters Thursday.
When the conversation went sour, Bonola allegedly flew into a rage and stabbed Gaal nearly 𒁃60 times in the basement ❀with a kitchen knife before throwing her butchered remains into a hockey bag owned by one of her sons and dumping her less than a mile from her home.
Bonola c♑ame to the US from Me🎀xico about 21 years ago and appears to have been an aspiring filmmaker who claimed to be a student at the New York School of Interior Design, according to police and his Facebook profile.
A spokesperson for the college told The Post there is no 🤪record of Bonola ever attending the school.
In the spring of 2020, he commented several times on photos posted to Gaal’s Facebook page, calling her the “most beautiful woman” and “loving” numerous of her posts.
Bonola’s pages on Facebook include brooding selfies and photos of him at various Big Apple landmarks, including the Freedom Tower and the 9/11 Tribute in Light, and one in Chinatown.
One of his two known accounts, of which has been dormant since February 2020, includes a single post featuring a photo from what appears to be a music video. In it, a man with a mane of dark curls, bearing a striking resemblance to Bonola, is photographed removing a garter from the leg of a laughing bride, surrounded by a crowd of guests in evening attire. In the caption accompanying the image, Bonola writes: “02 28 2000 one of my first script Monaco.”
Four days after Gaal was killed, police — who were looking to speak with Bonola — spotted him near the crime scene while they were out canvassing for video.
They brought him to the 112th Precinct station house in Forest Hills for questioning where he eventually confessed to the crime, and to sending Gaal’s husband disturbing text messages claiming the rest of her family was in danger, a threat investigators found to be baseless.
“I’ve never seen him but I hope they prosecute him and I hope that he stays in jail for a long time because this is unacceptable,” said Bonola’s neighbor Gina Simonaitis.
“I’m really tired of horrible people and that’s what this person is.”
Additional reporting by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Georgett Roberts
