Whitestone man shot to death in Beechhurst

Ordinarily, the intersection of 206th Street and 23rd Avenue in Beechhurst is one of the quietest spots in the borough. But all that changed when a passer-by discovered the body of a man slumped behind the wheel of a car. He had been shot in the head.
Police have identified the victim as Christopher Bautista, of 154-47 Willets Point Boulevard in Whitestone, not far from where he was found. Bautista, an auto-mechanic student at Lincoln Tech in Whitestone, had lived in the two-family home with his fiancée, who was studying to be an X-ray technician.
A woman at the address who identified herself as the girl’s mother said that the family was in shock. “I got back from visiting my son in California and Stephanie was supposed to pick me up at the airport. Instead she was at the Precinct.”
“They had been together for six years, and were going to get married when they were done with school,” she said. “I don’t understand it. He was supposed to be in school at eight in the morning.”
On Monday, October 15, Heidi Milatz was tending the garden of her neat Cape Cod house on the corner, when she first noticed a light-colored, late-model Ford Taurus parked a short distance across the street, with the lights on.
“It was about 8 a.m. and I just assumed someone had left their lights on and they snuck into the (Clearview) golf course,” the 23-year resident said.
Milatz explained that golfers sometimes sneak into the city-owned course to avoid paying greens fees. “I thought to myself, ‘Is he going to be upset when he comes back.’ ”
It was not until 2 p.m. that a man riding by on a motorcycle noticed the body and called police. “He looked shocked,” Milatz said. “He said, ‘There’s a corpse in there - it’s a mess,’ ” Milatz recounted, adding “If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have noticed. There’s never been anything like this around here.”
Uniformed and plain-clothes cops kept neighbors and one man said to be the victim’s brother at a distance, as agents of the Medical Examiner’s office and police photographed the scene.
Deputy Inspector Matthew Whelan, commander of the 109th Precinct confirmed that cops responded to a 9-1-1 call at about 2 p.m. and arrived at the location to find Bautista dead of a gunshot to the head. He said that the case was being handled by the 109th Detective Squad.
Anyone with information about this incident is encouraged to call the Crime Stoppers Hot Line at 800-577 TIPS (8477). All calls are kept confidential and you do not have to give your name.