A man in town for his grandmother’s funeral became the city’s first murder victim of the year when he was shot early Monday coming to the aid of his younger brother in an attempted robbery, police and relatives said.
Kalisaran, who had traveled from Guyana to attend his grandmother’s funeral this week, was blasted several times in the chest on 124th Street in South Ozone Park as he ran to the aid of his younger sibling, Sunny, 24, they said.
“They killed my son!” Anita Kalisaran sobbed Monday at her Brooklyn home as she clutched one of Ricky’s shirts. “Last night, he asked me if [he could] go out and I said, ‘Yes, go’. Then they shoot him. He was the best son. My son wanted to buy me a house.”
Family members said the brothers were returning home from a nearby nightclub and had parked their car on 124th Street when two men in a Mercedes spotted them at about 3:25 a.m.
Friends of the family suspect the killers may have been attracted by the glint of the heavy gold chains Sunny, an electrician and father of a baby boy, wore around his neck.
One pal said he often warned Sunny about showing off his bling.
“Even at work, we tell him, ‘You can’t dress like that.’ He’s said he’s gotten in fights over his chains before,’’ the co-worker said.
Sunny was shot several times in the back and was in critical condition, but is expected to survive.
“The killer must suffer like my sons suffer,” sobbed the boys’ mother. “My son worked very hard. He fought to protect his brother. They killed him for what? A gold chain?”
Meanwhile, another man was stabbed to death about 5 a.m. in a Bronx apartment building on Hoe Avenue near Freeman Street.
The 42-year-old victim and a woman got into a dispute while doing drugs with another person inside the apartment, police sources said.
A neighbor heard the commotion and called cops.
The bloodied victim stumbled out of the fifth-floor apartment, police sources said.
Police found him with stab wounds to his head and chest. He was declared dead at St. Barnabas Hospital.
Authorities are looking for the woman, who fled. The third person remained on scene and is cooperating with investigators, police sources said.
No arrests have been made in either slaying.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore