MUM IN SLAYING OF MOM
Susp charged in stray-bullet horror
Cops charged a man with firing the bullet that killed a Queens mother of three through her bedroom window, police said Saturday.
Detectives nabbed Issam Elabbar, 31, near his Corona home Friday evening and charged him with murder, manslaughter and weapons possession in the death of Bertha Arriaga. He was also charged with petty larceny for trying to steal a chained bike before the shooting.
Wearing a light blue Tshirt and shorts, Elabbar kept his gaze down and mouth shut as he was wheeled into the back of an ambulance outside the 115th Precinct Saturday afternoon.
He hurt his left leg before the arrest and complained of pain at the precinct, so cops took him to Elmhurst Hospital. His Queens Criminal Court arraignment was pending Saturday evening.
Arriaga, 43, was fatally shot in the neck early Wednesday as she peered outside her Jackson Heights bedroom window, roused by late-night noise near her home.
Her 14-year-old son rushed into the room to find his mortally wounded mother taking her final breath as the shooter ran from the scene at 34th Ave. near 92nd St.
Cops released surveillance video showing a man on a scooter and a second suspect trying to steal a chained bicycle outside Arriaga's home.
One man — later identified as Elabbar — was caught on camera moments later “firing one round toward the victim's window,” said NYPD Deputy Chief Julie Morrill, commanding officer of NYPD Detective Bureau, Queens North.
A tipster who recognized Elabbar from the clip reached out to detectives. The suspect had a cast on his leg in the video “which gave investigators an additional lead,” Morrill said.
Elabbar's leg was still bandaged when cops caught him Friday, said sources. The gun has not been recovered, Morrill said.
The victim's husband Jorge Aguilar declined to talk about Elabbar's arrest Saturday afternoon, rushing into his home with tears in his eyes.
The heartbroken husband told the Daily News on Wednesday that Arriaga “was the best wife, the best mom.”
“She was the one who would take care of the children, take them to school, wake them up — everything,” added her brother-in-law, Javier Aguilar.
Morrill wouldn't say if Elabbar was aiming at anyone or simply fired randomly into the air, and said that investigating was still ongoing.
“The fact that the bullet doesn't go where the gunman intended makes it no less a crrime,” Morrill said.
Elabbar's neighbors at his 41st Ave. apartment didn't know the man very well, but foound it suspicious thhat he always had a neew moped with him.
“He would always coome home with a new moped every morning or night,” said onne resident who decllined to share their naame. “He would just say hihi, bbut he had a different moped every night.”
Elabbar has been arrested four other times for nonviolent crimes: petty larceny, theft of services and drug possession, police sources said.
He was most recently nabbed on Nov. 26 for allegedly wiping cologne from an Abercrombie & Fitch store on Fifth Ave. near W. 56th St. in Midtown. He was given a desk appearance ticket, but failed to show up to court so a warrant was issued for his arrest, according to court records.
Police caught up with him in May but a Manhattan judge ordered him released without bail. He's expected to answer the charges in court in December.