‘Heartless animals’ shot man seeking a new life

A Bronx father shot dead after fleeing a fender-bender was released from prison last year and working hard to get his life back on track, the victim’s devastated wife told the Daily News.

“He was building a new life,” Natasha Astacio-Guerrero said of her husband, Roberto Guerrero, 35.

The victim had fled the scene of a fender-bender on Jan. 9, so Djiguiba Fofana, 30, and two others allegedly went looking for him. They found Guerrero double-parked outside an apartment building on Walton Ave. near E. 164th St., police sources said.

Fofana and his accomplices, a man and a woman, allegedly tried to drag the victim out of his Honda Accord. Fofana shot into the Accord from the passenger side, hitting Guerrero (photo) in the chest around 10:50 p.m., police said.

“He left a mother without a son, sisters without a brother and daughters without a father,” Guerrero’s wife said of the accused killer. “They’re heartless animals.”

Cops arrested the trio as they tried to flee in a Jeep Cherokee. Investigators recovered a Ruger handgun.

Fofana, of California, is charged with murder. He was ordered held without bail.

The other two occupants of the Jeep, Ibrahima Fofana, 22, of Philadelphia, and LaToya Douglas, 30, also of California, are charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

“We don’t know any of these people. We have no idea who they are,” Guerrero’s wife said. “My husband was probably running chores on his way home from work.”

Guerrero served time for drug and weapon convictions in 2010 and 2016 and was released on parole in March of last year.

He got a job working overnight shifts at a Whole Foods bakery to support his 15-year-old stepdaughter and two biological daughters, 10 and 7, from another relationship, his wife said.

“My husband never killed anyone. He never hurt anyone,” Astacio-Guerrero said. “He was a hard worker. His parole officer never had any problem with him.”

Loved ones flooded into his Bronx apartment Wednesday night to pay their respects and congregated around a makeshift memorial outside.

“He leaves six brothers and two sisters. He was loved by many,” his wife said. “My husband was a joker, he had a great sense of humor. If my husband had made it out alive, he would have made a joke about this.”