Earlier this month, two thugs – one of whom was arrested last month for a separate assault – bludgeoned a longtime Bronx fruit vendor and father of three to death with a baseball bat in “cold blood” and without provoke, police and sources said.
According to authorities and the criminal complaint, Romelle Jarrett, 37, and Terrence Downs, 44, pushed Leslie Sanchez, 56, to the ground and hit him in the head with a bat at his kiosk on East Fordham Road near the Grand Concourse in Morris Heights around 7:40 p.m. on Sept. 12.
He was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in serious condition, where he died from his injuries on Sept. 14, police said.
Law enforcement sources said the attack was unprovoked, but added that witnesses reported seeing the assailants arguing with dealers.
“When I heard about a street vendor being attacked on the street, I never thought it could be him,” Autumn Pearson, a family friend and former neighbor, told The Post on Wednesday.
“He was a peaceful man.”
Pearson said Sanchez and his wife had two sons and a daughter, the youngest of whom was still a baby.
“He was a good father,” Pearson said.
“He looked after his family. He was a husband, a father and everything he did was for his family. This is so sad. So cruel. So senseless. He just had a baby boy!”
When asked about Sanchez's wife, Pearson said only that “she's fine,” and declined to elaborate.
Pearson said Sanchez initially wanted to sell fruit near his home on Grant Street, where he'd lived for two years, but settled on the East Fordham Road location.
“He was on that corner for five years and came up with the idea to sell fruit and vegetables there,” the family friend said.
“He went out and bought a white truck and that was his start.”
Pearson said Sanchez was beaten so badly that he was forced to wear a fedora-like hat in his coffin to hide the wounds from the brutal assault.
He was subsequently cremated.
Pearson described Sanchez as a devoted father.
“He just wanted to work and go home to his family,” she said.
“When my kids were little, my dad would buy them little cars and we'd sit outside on the steps and watch them drive by. When they wouldn't stop, he'd have to chase them down the street.”
Pearson put up a sign in the window of the building where Sanchez once lived, remembering the beloved victim.
“Rest in peace Poppy Street Vendor Sanchez. We miss you,” it read, with a photo of the slain salesman in the middle.
Two flowers were placed on either side of the sign, and three small electric candles were lined up on the window sill.
“I will never forget the joy and love he had for his children and wife and the compassion he had for his friends and the public,” the former neighbor added about Sanchez.
“I'm going to miss him so much. I used to go out and talk to him while he was selling.”
She said Sanchez was always willing to help out when she was in trouble.
“Whenever I needed money, whenever I needed anything, he helped me out,” she recalled.
“He was just a really good guy. The perfect 'love your neighbor' type of guy.”
Jarrett and Downs were arrested the day before Sanchez's death and charged with attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault.
The Bronx District Attorney's Office said a new indictment will be filed on Oct. 15 and could include more aggressive charges.
“I just want justice for Leslie,” Pearson said.
“As long as the perpetrators are caught and kept in prison, we can have some peace of mind. The city is safer now that these people are off the streets.”
Police say Romell has been arrested twice before, once for third-degree assault in the Bronx last month and once for petty theft in the same borough in May 2022.
Police could not immediately provide details about Romell's arrest last month.
Downs was arrested in East Harlem in 2018 for unlawful possession of a controlled substance, but his criminal history also includes an arrest for attempted murder in Brooklyn in December 2002, police said.
Authorities said the suspect was arrested in Brooklyn in 2001 on an assault charge and two years earlier on a drug possession charge in Brooklyn.
