Woman Shot Dead Outside Williamsbridge, Bronx Apartment Building
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police were searching for clues early Sunday evening after a woman was shot in the back of the head and killed outside her home in the Bronx.
As CBS2's Erin Logan reported, police remained on the scene at 6:30 p.m. after 16 hours. The road where the shooting happened did not reopen until around 5:30 p.m.
A 911 call originally came in as a report for a person left unconscious on the street, but when police arrived they discovered the victim lying dead in front of 761 E. 214th St. in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx.
Police say the victim suffered a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.
A neighbor told CBS2 he believes there were two suspects. He said he heard a shot fired and then then amusement from the alleged attackers.
Neighbor Daniel Abru and his wife woke up to the crime scene Sunday morning. He said he heard a shot fired and then then amusement from the alleged attackers.
"They were laughing," Abru told 1010 WINS' Roger Stern. "I heard the shot then they came in this side, laughing."
He said the neighbors went on laughing for nearly a whole minute, and further said the assailants were also using foul language.
The Abrus' little girl screamed after the shot was fired.
"She cried, 'Mommy, mommy -- what happened?'" Abru's wife said.
The woman was identified late Sunday as Margarita Franco, 26, of the Bronx. Her father said she works in the pharmaceutical industry.
Family members, including the victim's father, were heartbroken and too upset to speak on camera as they placed candles at the site where they lost their daughter.
Carol Meade told CBS2 the deadly shooting is not surprising.
"I just thought you know it's normal around here -- that's normal."
Carrie Gonzales never met Franco, but she was having a very difficult time after the slaying.
"That image, I can't get it out of my head," she said.
Gonzales said she saw a lot more than crime tape and police walking up and down her street talking to neighbors.
"It was horrendous to see a young female -- beautiful, well dressed -- in this neighborhood, shot," Gonzales said.
She felt she had to look at the scene when the shooting happened.
"I kept on saying to myself, 'I'm not going to look out the window,' but as a mother, I had to," Gonzales said.
The shooting on Sunday came after a 21-year-old woman was found fatally shot in the stairwell of an apartment building, also in the Bronx, last week.
Aaliyah Alder, 21, was had left work in Manhattan and had apparently stopped to see friends Monday night at a building on Tinton Avenue, part of the Forest Houses, that is less than two miles away from her family's home.
Around 10:30 p.m. Monday, police said they received a 911 call reporting gunfire from inside the building. When emergency responders arrived, police said they found Alder in an eighth floor stairwell with a single bullet in her head.
Davaughn Johnson, 22, has been charged with murder and manslaughter late Tuesday in connection with the shooting.
Community activists were outraged at the shootings Sunday, and were calling for an end to violence against women.
"Killing our women is not a hobby; should not be a game; should not be any kind of thought process of anybody," said activist Tony Herbert. "We should be protecting our women, and turning around and killing them at the age of 20 and 21 is a problem."
Gonzales also said the violence has to stop. She said it is only a matter of time before police catch the suspect or suspects.
"God don't like ugly," she said. "And to see her mother go through that pain and suffering – he'll get what's coming to him."
Authorities ask anybody with information on the fatal shooting to come forward. The investigation is ongoing.
