Suspect nabbed in ’15 slaying
Bronx mother of 5 shot execution-style; fed inmate charged
Nearly nine years after a mother of five was shot execution-style in her Bronx apartment building, cops charged a federal prison inmate with the cold-blooded murder, saying the killing was part of a gang feud.
NYPD detectives arrested Lasalle Herman on Tuesday for the March 4, 2015, shooting death of Michelle Cox in her Webster Ave. apartment building — an incident the suspected motive for which left those who knew her in disbelief.
Herman, 34, is currently in federal prison on an unrelated racketeering charge, a police source said. Cop sources say Herman and Cox, 41, did not know each other.
Cox was fatally shot in the back of the head in her building near Alden Place as she walked up a flight of stairs to her apartment.
The victim, who worked as a security guard as she raised her five children, was returning from a store when she was shot. She died at the scene.
While the Cox's relatives initially believed the killing to be a case of mistaken identity, cops began working on a number of theories, including the possibility she was targeted by the father of one of her children, police sources told The News at the time.
NYPD detectives ultimately determined Cox was targeted because of her links to a local gang, police sources said. It was not immediately clear what those connections were.
“We are happy to see some developments on this front. We still need answers to so many questions,” Ryann Solomon, 49, Cox's partner, told The News on Wednesday. “Nothing can bring her back, but there is some relief to see some progress. We are grateful to the police and detectives that they did not forget Michelle, after all.”
The two women lived together at the Webster Ave. building where the shooting took place, and Solomon said she is still trying to deal with it nearly nine years later.
“She was going to meet a friend and never came back,” she said. “Looking at the new developments, I am not sure if it was the same friend or not.”
Solomon said she did not recognize the suspect and did not know of any connection he may have had with the victim
“The whole thing that he did was so senseless,” she remarked.
She insisted Cox did not have any gang ties.
Members of Cox's family said they were relieved over the arrest.
“This is amazing news,” said the victim's brother, Kassim Cox, 49. ” We can finally put her to rest. I am sorry that it took so long, but we are very happy.”
Friends and family liked to call Michelle by her nickname “Destiny,” her brother said, adding that the moniker was not a random choice.
“We got that name for her when she had a near-death experience in the '90s,” he said. “We were both young then. She was on her death bed after a car accident and had got 15 stitches.”
But she went on to live until a killer shot her down.
Kassim Cox's wife, Angelisa Gordon, 50, recalled the last few moments she spent with Michelle in 2015 before she was shot.
“We were planning birthday party on March 6 for Kassim, but she was shot on March 4,” Gordon said as she broke down in tears. “I had seen her a day before the murder. She had asked me to sit with her because my mother had just died we had just buried my mom.
“If I could say something to her today, it would just be that I miss her, I love her,” she added. “They finally found out who did it,”
Herman, the suspect, lives in Harlem, cops said. Members of the Bronx violent crimes squad identified him as a potential suspect in Cox's murder.
He was awaiting arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court on murder charges Wednesday.