Queens DA Richard Brown announced that the ex-boyfriend of a NYPD criminologist who was found dead in her Sunnyside apartment last year pleaded guilty to her murder. Gary McGurk, 24, told a judge yesterday, "I struck the victim Michelle Lee in the head with a hammer" four times, and, when asked what his relationship was with her, he answered, "Long-time friends, you honor."

Lee's bloodied and beaten body was found by her roommate. Lee, who had graduated from John Jay College in 2008, was working at a NYPD crime lab in Queens, and police said she was burned on the belly with an iron, tied to a bed with a cell phone charger cord, and stabbed in the neck, besides being struck in the head It turned out that McGurk, who met Lee at John Jay and had lied to her about having cancer so she'd give him money, had covered up Lee's death by, in the words of a police source, creating "a psychopathic crime scene to throw [cops] off his trail. He was pulling pieces from all sorts of different crimes into one scene."

In court, McGurk said that he first wrapped Lee's head with Saran wrap before striking her with a hammer, so there would be no blood when he repositioned her body. The Daily News reports, "A woman seated behind McGurk sobbed while Lee's family members sat grim-faced during the proceedings." McGurk faces 29 to 37 years in prison when he is sentenced. Brown noted that the plea will spare Lee's family from the emotional trauma of having to listen to testimony at trial about the gruesome circumstances surrounding Ms. Lee’s death" and added, "I think that Michelle would have been especially proud of her colleagues at the NYPD’s Queens crime lab who worked tirelessly to make certain that her killer was apprehended and that justice would be served."