In A Nutshell

"An ex-con bludgeoned his former girlfriend and her son to death with an iron bar yesterday, then turned his weapon of choice on a fill-in superintendent who was killed as he happened upon the crime, police sources said.

"My father, my father!" wept Meylin Peralta, 32, the daughter of Polonio Peralta, 67, upon learning her dad was beaten to death while substituting for a friend in Morrisania, the Bronx.

"He was always trying to help people," she continued. "Why couldn't he ever say, 'No'? "

Police nabbed blood-soaked suspect Rafin Vellon, 39, at his parents' Washington Ave. apartment. He was questioned last night at the 41st Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx and then charged with three counts of murder.

Vellon's rampage began when he took a dumbbell bar and smashed his former girlfriend, Gloria Valdez, 56, in the face inside the basement apartment they once shared, according to cops.

Vellon then went after Valdez's mentally handicapped son, Carlos, 36, according to cops. Valdez and her son died in the apartment. Polonio Peralta, who lived in Philadelphia, agreed to take care of the building while his old pal, the regular super, was in the Dominican Republic.

Peralta was supposed to go home Sunday, but stayed an extra day when his friend extended his trip.

He was working in the basement when he came upon the gruesome scene, police sources said.

Vellon beat Peralta's face to a pulp, sources said. The man later died at St. Barnabas Hospital.

"He was an old man. He didn't hurt anybody," said nephew Claudio Infante, 50. "He was all about his family. It's a shame, a real shame for him to die that way."

Valdez had kicked the unemployed Vellon out of her apartment last month after months of physical and verbal abuse, neighbors said. "They ended on bad terms," said her friend Yvonne Frasier, 47. "He abused her. She didn't want him to come back."

Valdez's son had tried to protect her, but he was emotionally disturbed and would wander the neighborhood in his pajamas carrying a samurai sword, neighbors said.

Vellon, who had a record of previous assaults, was arrested Oct. 2 .after he slashed tires, broke windshields and battered the door of Mega Radio Dispatch Inc. on Westchester Ave. in a rage after Valdez escaped from him by getting .into one of the company's cabs, a police source said.

In that incident, Vellon also wielded a dumbbell, as well as brass knuckles and a butterfly knife, witnesses said.

"It was kind of crazy," said cab dispatcher T.J. Trinidad, 19, describing Vellon's earlier rampage.

"The lady came and ordered a cab. She was crying. After she left, the man came and bashed the windows in. He said nothing. He broke the front windows. . . . He started breaking car windshields and windows," he said.

Vellon was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal mischief, but he was released on his own recognizance."