The 64-year-old woman was found killed on Thursday with an electric cord wrapped around her neck on the bloody front steps of Queens' house.
Juliet Kashida Singh, 64, was unconsciously unresponsive when police responded to a 911 call outside their home on 103rd Avenue near 105th Avenue in Ozone Park around 5:20pm.
An electric cord was wrapped around his neck, according to law enforcement sources.
Francisco Sevila, 40, who is suspected of her murderer, was arrested hours later around 1am on Friday.
He was charged with first-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon, officers said.
However, Sevilla told investigators he was “affected” but he doesn't remember anything, sources said.
The front of the victim's house – otherwise a quiet space with a neat garden – was littered with blood stains, half-edible apples, a man's wallet, and towels scattered across the ground.
Singh and Sevilla were involved in the construction together, fighting for more than $300, the victim apparently appears to owe him, sources said.
A 73-year-old neighbor named Dave, who has lived down the block from the victim for more than 30 years, said Singh owned a landscaping business with her former husband.
After the pair separated or divorced, another man began to come more frequently.
“I don't think she knew how to drive. I think she hired this guy to work with her and drove her,” Dave said. “I don't know if they've become friendly after that. …The guy is. [around] It's been two or three years now. ”
Neighbor Navid Persaud, 44, also works during construction, and he said he was back home from work to find an ambulance and a police vehicle.
“I didn't know what was going on,” said Peruu, who moved three years ago. “When I came up with my steps, I looked over and saw her lying in front of her door. I said, “Oh, s-t, she was dead. Her body was not moving. Her feet were facing the door, her head was on the stairs. She was lying on her back. Her clothes were pulled up. She couldn't see her face.”
Visibly upset, a neighbor said he was “shocked” by the fatal violence.
Georgett Roberts/NY Post
“She was a lovely woman,” he said of Singh. “This kind of thing happened to my neighbor, a good guy. This is crazy, man. Who is going to do something like that to her?
“It must be someone she knew. She couldn't open the door to strangers.”
Persaud recalled that young landscape workers were often at the company of their neighbors.
“I always look at her with guys. He looks Hispanic to me and looks younger than her,” Peruu said. “It looks like he's doing landscaping. I see him coming out with his tools. He drives a truck and two cars. He really doesn't use a truck. It's always parked outside the house.”
“She didn't drive, so he just had to come and go… to the appointment of a doctor,” he said. “I've never spoken to him.”
He described his murdered neighbor as “sick,” recalls that she had a health aide from her hometown who came to help her.
Another neighbor, a 24-year-old woman who didn't want to be identified, said that Singh had been suffering from breast cancer and appeared in remission, but that she had said she was in bad mood.
Singh, a native of Guyana, had a son who lived in Georgia, she said.
Neighbor added that she was “happily” and the murderer was arrested.
“We're just going to bring him to justice,” she said of the suspect.
Another neighbor said she had no idea about the victim but was very rattled by the vicious murder that left her in tears.
“It's our community. It's our neighbor,” the woman said. He also refused to give her name. “We're family here. It's just a tragedy. It's really true.”
“It's just daunting that this could happen here,” she said, her voice cracking.
