LOST WIFE, THEN SON

Bx. widower mourns man gunned down in B’klyn

Just 18 months after the death of his wife, a heartbroken Bronx dad will return to her grave and bury their youngest son after his unsolved shooting death.

Billy Murphy, 61, was crushed by the Jan. 28 slaying of his son Lamel on a Brooklyn street and described each passing day as a reminder of the victim’s presence inside the apartment the two shared for the last 10 years.

And he recalled Lamel (photo) and his mom as “two peas in the same pod” as he made plans for his son’s Feb. 15 funeral and burial in New Jersey alongside her.

“He’s just like her,” said the widower. “They act alike. Now they’ll be back together, buried together in the same grave . .... That was her baby.”

Lamel was the youngest of the family’s seven kids and was hoping to land a job in construction before his sudden and shocking death.

“I’m by myself, my wife died, and now he’s passed,” said Murphy. “I’m holding on. You know it’s bothering me, but I’m holding on.”

According to police, cops responding to a 911 call at 12:45 p.m. in Bushwick found Murphy, 32, with gunshot wounds to the chest and leg. He died a short time later at Brookdale University Hospital.

“It’s just a loss, him not being there,” said Murphy. “Getting up, not seeing him no more.

I [used to] call him up, ‘Yo, where you at?’ Sit there with him, laugh ... I’m so sad. My worst fear — you’ve got to bury your own child.”

Murphy said he had no message for the person who killed his son: “To be honest, there’s nothing to say to them.”

For the devastated dad, the whole world has changed in the last couple of years with the death of his spouse and now the slaying of his son.

“I can’t even believe it,” he said. “My worst fear. You’ve got to bury your own son. You know what it’s going to take for me to look at him in the coffin?”

The father said Lamel’s five brothers and one sister were “messed up” by word of the killing, as was his son’s girlfriend of four years. And he can’t imagine who would have targeted his son.

“Lamel was a good kid,” he said. “He just liked to play a lot. He was funny. Everybody loved him. He made everybody laugh. He was like a big kid. Always smiling, life of the party. He was a special kind. I can’t find nobody that didn’t like him.

“He’s going to have a big funeral, trust me. People keep saying ‘Who would do that to Lamel?’ I still can’t believe he’s gone. It’s hard to process.”