Woman’s gang ties led to slay of her & pal: cops

A former college hoops player found shot to death along with a gal pal in a burning car in the Bronx was collateral damage in a gang war sparked by a stolen purse, police sources said Thursday.

Jesse Parrilla, 22, died after he was kidnapped along with Nikki Huang — who had triggered a string of shootings because members of the Down the Hill gang mugged her and stole her purse last Sunday. Huang let her friends in the rival Up the Hill gang know about the theft, police sources said.

Firefighters found Parrilla and Huang’s body in the burning wreck of Parrilla’s mother’s Honda Accord about 4:15 a.m. Monday, on Shore Road near Pelham Split Rock Golf Course in Pelham Bay Park.

Investigators believe both were shot to death before the car was torched.

Their deaths was the bloody result of Huang’s Sunday mugging on the Lower East Side. Huang owned a nail salon on Grand St. in Chinatown — a 21st birthday present from her parents, who own Wa Lung Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant down the street.

She also had some ties to street gangs, though, and she told her friends in that life about the mugging.

It’s not clear if she wanted street justice, but the Up the Hill gang went looking for payback, the sources said.

They responded by shooting and killing

Brandon Atkinson, 39, who was shot in the head on Avenue D at E. Third St. about 11:15 p.m. Sunday, police sources said. It’s not clear if he’s the one who mugged Huang.

An hour later, in what police sources describe as retaliation for Atkinson’s slaying, a gunman shot a 22-year-old man in the arm and a 19-year-old man in both legs on Cherry St. near Pike St. across from a luxury hirise on the Lower East Side, the sources said.

Then, Huang and Parilla were kidnapped and killed.

Atkinson, who lived in the Bronx, grew up in Lower Manhattan, said a friend who stopped by a makeshift memorial on Ave. D Thursday night.

“He used to come back to hang out and be with his people,” the friend said. “His funeral was the other day . ... Everyone was there. It’s senseless.”

Parrilla played basketball for prep schools in New York City and attended Genesee Community College, where he played point guard for the school’s basketball team from 2018 to 2019, his mother told the Daily News Wednesday.

His mother, Michelle Morales, said Parrilla likely died because her son was in the wrong place at the wrong time because he gave Huang, a friend since middle school, a ride.

“She needed a ride and she called him, but I don’t know how they ended up in the Bronx,” Morales said. “He was home all that day, and he was supposed to meet me. He didn’t show, and I called and called but he didn’t pick up . ... They shot him twice. They assassinated him.”