Husband’s chilling warning before wife fatally shot by teen, accomplice in NYC mugging: ‘They have a gun’
“Stay back, they have a gun” — that’s what a desperate Manhattan man told his family just moments before his wife was shot point blank in the head by a teen mugger and his pal in a botched robbery, new court papers reveal.
The heartbreaking details about 57-year-old Ying Zhu Liu’s tragic slaying inside her Two Bridges apartment building earlier this month were laid out in a criminal complaint charging a 16-year-old boy with murder in her shooting death.
The teen, Dante Schaller, and a still-at-large accomplice followed Liu’s husband, Shen Yan, 61, into the Market Street condo’s elevator around 10:50 p.m. on Sept. 9 and pulled a handgun on him, according to police.
Yan, who doesn’t speak English, realized he was being robbed — and the masked suspects snatched his Samsung phone and $100 in cash, according to the criminal complaint.
When the elevator doors opened on the 8th floor — where Yan lived with his family — the dad saw his son waiting for him in the hallway and delivered a chilling warning.
“Stay back, they have a gun,” he said, according to the filing.
The son, 32-year-old Lin Rong Yan, tried to intervene and was pistol-whipped by one of the suspects — suffering multiple fractures to his face and nose, according to prosecutors, who said the assault was captured on surveillance video.
His mom heard the commotion coming from the hallway and stepped out of the apartment to try to help her husband and son.
The struggle moved to the stairwell, where one of the muggers raised a handgun and fired a single shot into Liu’s face from three feet away, according to the complaint, which doesn’t specify which suspect pulled the trigger.
Liu, a home health aide, fell to the floor, and blood gushed out of her mouth and head.
EMTs pronounced her dead at the scene, from a gunshot wound to the head.
Manhattan prosecutors said that Schaller and his accomplice were caught on surveillance footage from a nearby deli in the same clothing they were wearing during the heartless crime — but without their masks — just 40 minutes before the murder.
Schaller was identified as wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, the complaint said.
The hoodie was found by investigators inside the teen’s home on East 167th Street, as was one live 9mm round, authorities said.
Police also said they recovered a 9mm shell from a step in the stairwell and found a bullet fragment inside the hallway of the victims’ building.
Schaller was arrested Thursday.
He was ordered held without bail on charges of murder, burglary, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon charges during his arraignment.
Schaller, who just turned 16 on Sept. 11, has an open felony case for assaulting a police officer, according to sources.
He appeared before a judge in juvenile court Friday morning, where his attorney, Sam Roberts of the Legal Aid Society, made a bid to downgrade the murder charge.
“It’s not alleged that’s he’s the shooter and it’s not alleged at any point he possessed the weapon,” he argued.
But Judge Stephen Antignani didn’t bite, saying about the grand jury: “If they think it’s appropriate, they will charge him. If they don’t think it’s appropriate, they won’t charge him.”
Roberts was also asked by the judge to recuse himself because of a possible conflict with a separate youth case.
Relatives of Schaller’s filled the back row of the courtroom during the hearing, his mother weeping.
As he was hauled away, the teen yelled out “Love you too. Yo kiss my baby, kiss my baby” and a woman in the gallery kissed a baby she was holding.
He is due back in court Tuesday.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said there would be a hearing on whether he will be prosecuted as an adult at a later date.
