Two Queens cousins locked in a dispute over the sale of a home were killed in a suspected murder-suicide late Friday night, relatives and police sources told The Post.
Police responded to a call about shots fired at a home on 116th Road in Jamaica just before midnight and found the 37-year-old and 41-year-old men dead from gunshot wounds to the head, authorities said.
Family members identified the younger man as Prince and the elder cousin as Antoine. The two had grown up together and were considered close, relatives said.
“It was an issue with the sale of the house, some disagreement with how the money was going to be divided up,” a 62-year-old uncle who lives in the home’s basement told The Post.
According to the family, Antoine had given Prince power of attorney to sell the house because Prince was familiar with the real estate market. But the arrangement turned sour, and the cousins began arguing over the sale.
Prince’s wife grew alarmed Friday afternoon when he stopped answering calls and texts and failed to pick up their daughter at school, the uncle said. She began using her phone’s GPS tracking app to see where he was and noticed his location hadn’t changed for two hours.
She went to the Jamaica house and called 911 for two wellness checks, but a neighbor said police came to the home twice and said they couldn’t go inside without cause.
“She was telling them she had the GPS on her phone and it was pinging from that location,” the neighbor said of the wife.
When the uncle returned home, he let Prince’s wife inside.
“I unlocked the door,” the uncle recalled. “When she cut the light on, she saw Prince’s body leaning against the front door. He wasn’t moving. She started screaming.”
“I grabbed her and I said, ‘We gotta get out of here because he’s probably still in here,’” he said. “She said she heard something coming from upstairs. When we were coming out we heard the gunshot.”
When NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit responded, they found Antoine in a bedroom holding a handgun with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police sources said. He was rushed to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center but later died from his injuries.
Prince was pronounced dead at the scene.
Relatives described the tragedy as the culmination of a bitter falling-out over money between two men who had once been as close as brothers.
The post Queens Cousins Die in Murder-Suicide After Dispute Over Sale of Home: Family, Police Sources appeared first on Real News Now.
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