Queens stabbing victim faces down questioning from accused attacker

A Queens woman stabbed by a bike-riding slasher tearfully fended off the suspect's bizarre questioning yesterday - testifying that she could never forget his "evil eyes."

Eduarda Oliva, 39, stood up at the witness stand and identified Elie Granger as the man who plunged a knife into her chest as she and her daughter walked home in 2008.

Granger, who's defending himself and was cross-examing the victim, suggested Queens prosecutors coached her to identify him.

"Did you practice standing up and pointing and saying that's the man?" Granger asked.
"No," Oliva responded with a note of defiance.

She said she would never forget Granger's eyes as he stabbed her in the chest without a word.
"I just remember the evil eyes looking at me," Oliva told Granger. "I thought I was dying....I could never forget those eyes."

"My eyes are evil?" Granger asked.

"Yes," she said.

She brushed off Granger's suggestion that she picked him out because he was the only black man at the defense table.

"I was looking for the person I remembered in my mind and that was you," she said.
Oliva broke down in tears when Granger, 48, asked whether it was possible for her to have prevented the attack.

"How?" she demanded. "Can you please tell me how?"

Queens Supreme Court Justice Joseph Zayas called a recess as Oliva came down from the witness and collapsed crying into her husband's arms.

Oliva was walking with her daughter, then 13, when her assailant rode up beside them on a bicycle, stabbed Oliva, then rode off.

She stumbled onto a parked car as her daughter Kayla ran for help.

Granger, who is on trial for attempted murder, has already served time for three similar incidents.
In 1993, he punched a former city councilman when the lawmaker asked him to stop riding on the sidewalk.
The next year, Granger was arrested in Manhattan when he biked up to musician Kevin Hall and stabbed him.

Oliva spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from a stab wound to her chest and still struggles emotionally.

"How are you doing Mrs. Oliva?" Granger asked her, before starting his cross-examination. "I'm sorry for what happened to you."

Oliva returned Granger's expression of sympathy with an icy stare.