By The TimesLedger
A shooting that killed a newlywed man in his wife’s Springfield Gardens home may have been the work of another man living at the house, according to neighbors and the victim’s family.
Guy Curtis, 36, was shot twice in the torso during a dispute at 137-18 Southgate St. last Thursday evening, police said. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Mary Immaculate Hospital. The medical examiner said the cause of death was “perforating gunshot wounds to the torso with perforation of major organs and blood vessels.”
Police had not determined a motive in the shooting, which took place on a quiet block of two-story homes. The suspect, described by police as a 35-year-old black man, was still at large as of press time, but no further identification was made public.
An officer from the 113th Precinct was guarding the house Friday. No one answered the door, which was adorned with a wreath.
Police would not confirm published reports that the suspect had in the past been romantically involved with Curtis’ wife, but a neighbor said the man was an ex-boyfriend who was staying at the woman’s house.
“She’d been trying to get him out of there,” said Michelle Chandler, 44, a friend of the couple who is also godmother to the wife’s children. “He was supposed to be moving out.”
Chandler said she knew little about the suspect, except that he went by the name “Steve” but added “we don’t know what he’s going under now.”
The victim’s cousin, Lyn Randall, lived with him in Jamaica and said that Curtis and his wife of a few months, Monique, were planning on buying a house, but were still shuttling back and forth between their two homes on Southgate Street in Springfield Gardens and 169th Street in Jamaica.
Randall described his cousin as a hard-working furniture mover devoted to his family, and denied that his killer was part of a love triangle.
“They were high school sweethearts,” said Randall of Curtis and his wife, but added, “you know how men get in disputes with women.”
Evelyn Heard, 80, who has lived next door on Southgate Street since 1964, said the suspect was “not a nice person,” often washing his car in front of her house and ignoring her when she complained of the water flowing onto her property.
“He would never speak to anybody,” said Heard.
Curtis’ wife briefly appeared outside her husband’s home to plead with a reporter to “please stop printing wrong stuff. Please, my husband is dead,” before returning indoors.
