Bronx Home health aide nearing retirement, client killed in East Harlem double shooting
Police say they responded to a 911 call at the NYCHA Gaylord White Houses on East 104th Street and Second Avenue just after 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
More Stories
A home health aide less than a month away from retirement and her client were both shot and killed inside an apartment in East Harlem on Thursday night, according to the NYPD.
“We had a dinner planned on the fifth to celebrate,” her daughter Elly said, trying to stay strong. “She deserved it. She worked three jobs at a time.”
Police say they responded to a 911 call at the NYCHA Gaylord White Houses on East 104th Street and Second Avenue just after 8:30 p.m. Thursday.
According to the NYPD, 55-year-old Elsa Espina-Espinal, a mother of four from the Norwood section of the Bronx, and 66-year-old Wilgen Elias Severino-Tatis were both found dead with gunshot wounds to the head.
Sources close to the investigation tell News 12 that Severino-Tatis was tied up when officers entered the apartment.
“If God wanted to take it, could have taken her. But not like this,” Elly said with tears in her eyes. “All she ever did was help. The only thing that people could say is how good she was.”
Elsa and her sister have worked with Severino for close to a decade. According to family, they became family themselves. Elsa had plans to retire in Santa Domingo.
Information about what led up to the killings - or who may have pulled the trigger - was not immediately available.
What has followed has been a nightmare– a familiar pain Elly knows too well and hoped she’d never experience again. In 2009, her brother Jhonny Santana was killed in The Bronx. Police have not found his killer.
“We didn't get justice for him. We are going to get it for my mother because she didn't deserve this,” Elly said.
Anyone with information is being urged to call the Crime Stoppers hotline.
