By Rebecca Henely
Sharon Williams-Wright said her 19-year-old son Percel Wright had tried on the new suit she had bought him for his Dec. 1 court date before leaving her apartment in LeFrak City the day before. But Wright never came back to use it.
Later that evening Wright was shot once in the chest, according to the Police Department. Police responded to a 911 call reporting a man had been shot in the third floor hallway of 98-23 Horace Harding Expwy. a few minutes before 6 p.m. Wright was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced DOA, police said. No suspects have been arrested and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
“My last born and my first gone for stupidness,” Williams-Wright, 47, said.
Wright, who sometimes lived with his mother in LeFrak City, had been arrested in July 2009 on robbery charges, the Queens district attorney’s office said. Williams-Wright said his court date was scheduled for the day after he was killed, but he was innocent of the crime and in fact had been in Atlanta at his father’s home when the robbery had occurred.
“He was never able to go back [to Atlanta] because the system railroaded him,” Williams-Wright said.
Police said the homicide was not related to the robbery arrest.
Williams-Wright said she believes her son was killed by three men who had attacked him twice before. She said they had shot him in the leg this summer, then attacked him again Nov. 26. Afterward, they met him at the Horace Harding location and “jumped him,” she said.
“The boys that killed him was afraid of him,” Williams-Wright said.
Williams-Wright, who has four other children as well as numerous foster children and grandchildren, said Wright had come to see her July 17 and planned to eventually go back to Atlanta. She said Wright wanted to go into acting and that whenever she thinks of feeling sad, a happy memory of Wright comes to mind.
“I regret losing my child, but the time spent with him was awesome,” she said.
Williams-Wright said that on Nov. 29 Wright had signed a Christmas ornament for the tree. The day of his death, Wright had been spending time with Williams-Wright and the family. She said she remembered talking to him about the Boys II Men song “A Song for Mama” and Wright saying that song described how he felt about Williams-Wright.
“We were definitely all together on that day,” Williams-Wright said, “so I have no regrets about spending time with my children.”
Reach reporter Rebecca Henely by e-mail at rhenely@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
