Mike Kenney is being sought by police in the murder of his ex-wife, Denise.
A crazed killer was on the loose Thursday night after hacking his ex-wife to death in a midtown hair salon, leaving a trail of bloody footprints as he bolted with stolen cash.
Co-workers of victim Denise Kenny, 41, a friendly hairdresser at the W. 35th St. salon and a mother of two, said they heard bloodcurdling screams as she was stabbed repeatedly in a bathroom.
Cops were hunting for her ex-husband, Michael Kenny, 42, an ex-con with a violent rap sheet, who was on parole after doing prison time for a series of shotgun robberies.
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound menace had sent his ex-wife sinister text and phone voice messages warning what he would do if she left him.
"Just remember what I tell you: If you ever leave me, the things I can do to you," he said in a phone message he left her more than a year ago, a police source said.
The bloodshed shockingly came 17 years after Michael Kenny was locked up for trying to kill his first wife, Stella, chasing her down a Queens street with a gun, her parents told the Daily News.
Leo Pinkhasov, 51, owner of D'Galina's Center Salon, said yesterday's deadly encounter occurred just two days after Denise Kenny told her ex to get lost.
"He had crazy eyes," said Pinkhasov, describing Kenny after the fatal 3:30 p.m. attack.
Cops said Michael Kenny had come to the salon earlier yesterday and argued with his ex-wife. He returned to apologize, and she took him upstairs to talk.
Minutes later, Denise Kenny's piercing screams echoed through the salon.
The suspect stormed downstairs tracking blood through the salon, workers said. He grabbed his ex-wife's purse from her workstation and took a wallet, then rifled through the salon's cash register after smashing it on the floor.
He left a path of bloody footprints leading west on 35th St. toward Seventh Ave.
Pinkhasov said he rushed from the ground-floor salon to an upstairs bathroom to find his gravely wounded employee slumped over and making gurgling noises.
"When I got inside, I saw the knife on the floor. She was on the toilet. I said, 'Denise! Denise!' She fell down. Then I saw all the blood," Pinkhasov said.
She died at Bellevue Hospital.
Co-workers said that although Denise Kenny griped about her on-again off-again relationship, they had no idea how bad it was.
In a January 2010 incident at her Queens home, Michael Kenny grabbed her by the neck and choked her, a police source said. He was arrested on misdemeanor assault, but the charge was later dismissed.
Fearing for her life, Denise Kenny took out a restraining order, which Michael Kenny violated numerous times, a source said.
"Don't take me for a fool," he told her in a text message.
When cops confronted him last year about defying the court order to stay away from his wife, Kenny told them, "I know I shouldn't be calling her, but she drives me crazy," a source said.
Colleagues said Denise Kenny, who had worked at the salon for three years, was an affable immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago.
Michael Kenny's former in-laws, Peter and Esther Mallo, said they were saddened, but not shocked, by the murder.
"One day he did a lot of drugs and tried to kill my daughter," Esther Mallo, of Maryland, told The News, recalling a 1994 incident.
"He had a gun. He didn't fire it, but he threatened to. She had to run into the street to escape," Peter Mallo said.
Michael Kenny copped a plea for weapons possession after the incident - but it's unclear if he served any time.
"My daughter divorced him," Peter Mallo said. "She wanted nothing more to do with him."
With Jennifer H. Cunningham, John Lauinger, Kerry Wills and Kerry Burke
rparascandola@nydailynews.com
With Alison Gendar
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