By Christina Santucci
A 26-year-old man who was being sought by police in connection with the city’s first murder of 2014 was apprehended in Long Island and charged in the South Jamaica shooting death, the NYPD said Monday night.
Sheldon Smith, 26, was charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the killing of 22-year-old Julio Mora, of Richmond Hill, police said.
The Police Department said Mora was the first person murdered in the city this year.
He was found dead shot to death inside a home on 113th Avenue early New Year’s Day, and the following evening, police said Smith was being sough in connection to the homicide.
A spokeswoman for the NYPD said an investigation led the authorities to Smith in Long Island, and the South Jamaica resident was taken into custody without incident.
Mora’s relatives said the 22-year-old’s mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack on New Year’s Day 19 years before her son was killed.
Reach managing editor Christina Santucci by e-mail at timesledgerphotos@gmail.com by phone at 718-260-4589.
