A FATAL FRIENDSHIP

Buddies quarrel at Brooklyn party, one ends up stabbed to death

They were friends to the bitter end.

An ice pick-toting Brooklyn partygoer, busted in a suburban hideout after three weeks on the lam, was charged Wednesday with fatally stabbing a buddy during a late-night street scuffle with the victim’s boyfriend.

McKoy Dove, 23, was nabbed Tuesday for manslaughter and weapon possession in the lethal attack on Derrick Williams as tensions exploded quickly at an East New York party back on May 29. Dove was tracked down by cops in Yorktown, northern Westchester County, about 45 miles north of the city.

The party’s host, Diego Best, told the Daily News the confrontation escalated just before midnight, with Dove initially squaring off with Williams’ boyfriend and a second man after a bottle-throwing fight erupted outside the house where two dozen people gathered for a mutual pal’s birthday.

“It’s so sad, because we’re all friends,” said Best. “We all know each other. It was never supposed to end like this.”

According to Best, the deadly chain of events began when he announced the party was over and told everyone to leave.

“McKoy was saying that’s why he didn’t like to come to parties, because everybody ends up fighting,” recalled Best, 31, who held the get-together at his aunt’s house. Williams’ boyfriend began sharing Dove’s remark with other attendees, who took exception to the comment.

As Dove walked back to his car, he was followed by two men — including Williams’ boyfriend, with the trio getting into it “face to face,” according to Best.

“Derrick came running, and that’s how he and McKoy came into it,” explained Best. “Everyone was yelling and saying that [Derrick] fainted, because they didn’t McKoy him.”

Dove allegedly plunged the ice pick into his friend’s mouth and fled the scene. Williams staggered away and collapsed on the sidewalk near Newport St. and Van Sinderen Ave., police said. Williams, 29, died at Brookdale University Hospital, where he was taken by friends before police arrived at the crime scene. Dove, who lives in the Bronx, was ordered held without bail when he was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Wednesday. Defense lawyer Mihea Kim described the killing as self-defense and said Dove was only hiding out because of death threats. know stabbed

The lawyer said Dove, born in the island nation of Jamaica, had no criminal history and was on the verge of receiving asylum in the U.S. this August after a three-year process.

“When he was 13 his father found out he was gay and beat him with a machete,” Kim said in court. “He was disowned and beaten by his mother and lived on the streets. When he was 19, a group of people shouting homosexual obscenities shot up the house where he was staying, murdering his boyfriend.

“He went to Panama then Mexico then San Diego and surrendered there begging for asylum. He was in a federal detention center for six months.

“He did not start the fight. A brawl does not make sense for someone who has done everything right in his life since stepping into this country.”

Dove had been living in a single-family home, divided into apartments, in Wakefield.