“[He’ll] finally pay for murdering my husband . . . This brings closure.” LINDA SCHEU
The widow of slain cop George Scheu said yesterday she’s relieved a suspect has been arrested at last in the 12-year-old murder and will “finally pay for killing my husband.”
“This brings closure,” said a shaken Linda Scheu after detectives knocked on her door early yesterday and told her Henry Vega, 33, had been arrested.
Scheu, 41, was shot in the eye while off duty on July 11, 1987, when he confronted a man trying to break into a car across the street from his Flushing home.
Scheu was a 19-year decorated cop in the Jackson Heights station house and a Naval Reserve petty officer. He had three kids.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Vega – who has an arrest record for burglaries and narcotics dating back to 1985 – admitted he was stealing a radio from a Mercedes when Scheu approached him.
Vega told detectives that Scheu startled him, and that’s when he pulled out a .38-caliber pen gun and shot the cop, said Brown.
Vega was a suspect from the start, but police did not have enough evidence to question him.
The Organized Crime Control Bureau learned he was dealing drugs in a social club and set up a hidden camera there, a source told The Post. Not only did OCCB cops pick him up selling narcotics, but they also recorded him bragging about killing Scheu, the source said.
Vega, who lives in Flushing, spent hours screaming his innocence before confessing to Detectives Steven Brown and Louis Lila at the Flushing station house at 5:30 a.m., the source said.
He was charged with murder and narcotics sales.
“I’m relieved that the case has been solved and that someone will finally pay for killing my husband,” Linda Scheu said.
Scheu’s death was the city’s second-oldest unsolved cop murder. The oldest is that of Officer Robert Bolden, who was killed Jan. 22, 1971, in a Brooklyn pub.