Josephine Bekatoros, 84, allegedly stabbed to death by daughter Diana Bekatoros in Dix Hills home

A Queens woman was arrested on suspicion of stabbing her 84-year-old mother to death in Dix Hills Wednesday night, Suffolk police said Thursday.

Police responded to a 911 call of a stabbing and arrived at the home on Carman Court at 9:08 p.m. to find the body of Josephine Bekatoros with stab wounds, Suffolk police said in a news release.

Homicide detectives later located her daughter, Diana Bekatoros, 51, at her home at a riverfront apartment building on Center Boulevard in Long Island City and arrested her on suspicion of murder in the second degree, police said.

She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment Thursday in First District Court in Central Islip, according to court information posted online. Her attorney, Daniel Russo, did not immediately respond to calls and text messages seeking comment.

She was being held without bail, court records state.

As Diana Bekatoros was leaving the Fourth Precinct in Hauppauge for arraignment Thursday morning, a Newsday photographer asked her if she had stabbed her mother.

"I never had a mother," she responded in a whisper as she walked toward a police van with her hands shackled, and with a chain that attached her to another woman.

When asked again, she whispered, "Are you my mother?" as she fidgeted with her hands.

“I don’t even know what you are talking about," Bekatoros said when asked another time about the stabbing.

Police confirmed that the woman, dressed in white, was the suspect.

Helene Glodowski, 74, who said she has lived across from Josephine Bekatoros since Glodowski moved into the then-new development in 1989, said she was "shocked" to hear of the stabbing.

"I can't believe it," she said.

Glodowski said her husband had told her he saw multiple police cars outside their window in the middle of the night.

“I couldn’t understand why the police cars were there," she said. "Nothing happens here."

She said Diana Bekatoros had lived with Josephine Bekatoros and her husband, Dennis Bekatoros, for years and moved out roughly 15 years ago.

“She was a lovely lady," Glodowski said of Josephine Bekatoros. "It seemed like she got along with everyone.”

Josephine Bekatoros walked with a cane following complications from back surgery more than 10 years ago, and a health care aide assisted her, Glodowski said. But she still drove, she said.

"She always stopped the car to ask about my kids," she said.

“She was always meticulously dressed," Glodowski added. "She was very careful with her appearance. She’s just a lovely, lovely woman.”

Property records show that Josephine and Dennis Bekatoros purchased their Carman Court home in 1989.

"We all moved into the court at the same time," Glodowski said. "I think they moved in first."

The couple had a small dog, she said. They also had a son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter who lived in Nassau County, she said.

Glodowski said she recalled going to the Bekatoros home for coffee at least twice and the last time she was there, roughly seven or eight years ago, Josephine Bekatoros was talking on the phone with Diana. She described them as "mother-daughter friends."

With James Carbone

By David Olson

david.olson@newsday.com@DavidOlson11

David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.