By Jeremy Walsh
An East Elmhurst woman was shot dead by her ex−fiancÉ, who then turned the gun on himself Monday night, police said.
Suzanna Sutton, 30, had been engaged to marry 30−year−old Brooklyn resident Robert Gruber before the couple broke up earlier this year, a police source said. Sutton had been dating someone else when Gruber called her Monday afternoon and said he was stopping by to visit, the source said.
Sutton initially refused to see him, but relented when Gruber said he had bought something for her, the source said.
Around 8 p.m., Gruber showed up in the pouring rain and rang the doorbell of the two−story brick townhouse on 92nd Street a block away from the 115th Precinct station house, the source said. When Sutton came downstairs and opened the door, he shot her in the head and then turned the gun on himself, the source said.
A roommate who was upstairs with a child who may have been Sutton’s heard the gunshots, the source said.
“She’s afraid to go downstairs because she knows in her mind what happened,” the source said. “After about a minute, she goes downstairs, sees the feet of the girl, runs back upstairs, calls 911.”
Police recovered the gun at the scene. There were no witnesses because of the bad weather and no history of domestic violence reports from the location, the source said.
Sutton’s daughter was escorted from the scene by family members, the New York Post reported. It was unclear whether she was present during the shooting, the Post said.
No neighbors answered their doors Tuesday morning, but news of the two deaths alarmed a Turkish man who was sent to the address after responding to a craigslist.com advertisement about an apartment for rent.
“It’s surreal …, man,” said the man, who would only identify himself as Hakan. “I came to the U.S. three weeks ago.”
Sutton’s murder is the first homicide in the 115th Precinct this year. Last year by this time, there had been one homicide, according to the precinct’s online tracking of major index crimes.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e−mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718−299−0300, Ext. 154.
