Bronx beauty shot & killed
Slain during fight at projects
An aspiring model pulled a blade while helping her friend settle a dispute with the pal’s baby daddy — and was fatally shot in the head during the fight in a Bronx housing project, sources said.
Aaliyah Alder, 21, was killed Monday night on the ninth floor of 965 Tinton Ave. in Morrisania’s Forest Houses, according to police sources. Her body was discovered in a stairwell at around 10:40 p.m., the sources said.
Alder and her friend met up with the father of the pal’s child, who was hanging with a group of men. A fight broke out and Alder pulled out a knife, sources said.
She sliced one of the men on the hand — and he responded by pulling out a gun and opening fire. Alder, who lived about a mile away at 512 E. 145th St., took a single bullet to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Moments after the young woman was killed, surveillance video captured at least two men fleeing the building. The suspected shooter — identified as Davaughn Johnson, 22 — can be seen covering his face and clutching his apparently injured hand, sources said.
Cops tracked him down and arrested him Tuesday, according to police officials. He was charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.
Sources said cops were also looking for a 24-yearold man with at least 10 arrests — for weapons possession, drugs, robbery, burglary and assault — but it was unclear what his role might have been.
Alder’s distraught family declined to speak about the incident on Tuesday, but a neighbor said Alder’s mom was overcome with grief.
“She was in shock,” said Ava Ramirez, 68. “She started knocking on all the doors. She was yelling, ‘My daughter died! My daughter died!’
“We were all holding her,” Ramirez added.
Alder’s stepfather, Patrick Murray, told WNBC that she was an aspiring model who had stopped by the friend’s apartment after work.
“This is so sad,” he said. “We are so shocked [and] hurt . . . because we can’t bring her back.” Additional reporting by Daniel Prendergast