By Phil Corso
Police were investigating an apparent suicide Thursday evening after they said a man was found dead outside a house in Little Neck.
According to police, a man apparently shot himself in the chin outside a house near 53rd Avenue and Marathon Pkwy. about 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon. Investigators were on the scene Thursday evening surveying the body, which was blocked from street view by a sheet.
The dead man on the doorstep apparently had no relation to the family inside the home, according to a friend and neighbor of a man who he said lives in the two-story home. The friend, who identified himself only as Jay, said he was told a middle-aged Asian man had shot himself around 3 p.m. on the family’s doorstep for unknown reasons.
Jay said he saw police outside his friend’s house and then spoke to his friend via cell phone, when he learned of the apparently unknown man killing himself on the doorstep.
“It has nothing to do with the family,” Jay, the 22-year Little Neck resident, said. “I can assure you that.”
The body was sitting face-up on the stoop as the medical examiner tended to the scene.
One neighbor who lives across the street said she heard two gunshots before noticing ambulance trucks arrive at the house.
“It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem like something anyone would do,” the neighbor said. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen around here.”
Neighbors and passers-by gathered across the street from the house Thursday evening to watch as investigators wheeled the body away under a white cover.
The incident was still under investigation, police said.
Reach reporter Phil Corso by e-mail at pcorso@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
