• It pales in comparison to Virginia, but it shouldn't: A disturbed Queens man killed his mother and two others before killing himself. The mother is said to have called the police seven times seeking protection, the last time minutes before her death. [NYDN]
• The Virginia Tech gunman addressed his manifesto to "30 Rockefeller Avenue, NY, NY 10102" — and it still made it to NBC: the one package that would probably be better off lost. [NYT]
• Oh, great, look who's coming to Manhattan: JCPenney. The company will open a 150,000-square-foot store in the midtown. A Lower East Side branch is surely to follow by, oh, 2012. [CNN Money]
• The Times produces a think piece on the New Jersey Governors Who Speed, interviewing a Christie Whitman staffer and Thomas Kean. The consensus is that speeding is "just part of the culture." [NYT]
• And the final bummer on a wretched morning: The Gowanus whale is dead. Surprisingly, not from poisoning; the poor thing struck a "rocky ridge." We suspect suicide. [NYP]