Moms of NYC burning car victims plead for new information
LOWER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (PIX11) -- More than seven months after Jesse Parrilla and his friend Nikki Huang were fatally shot and placed in Parrilla's burning Honda, their mothers are pleading for new leads in a double murder case that's yielded no arrests yet.
Their comments follow the release of a murky surveillance picture that showed four men leaving the Bronx crime scene near Pelham Bay and Split Rock Golf Courses on May 16.
"We all know that besides the four individuals, there were more that played a part in this," Parrilla's mother, Michelle Morales, said during an interview with PIX11 News Tuesday, "because before the cops knew about those individuals, the whole community knew."
Morales is asking the NYPD to release the surveillance video of the four men leaving the golf course area because she believes "it will help the public identify these individuals by their body movements ... the way they walk, the way they move."
Huang's mother responded to our outreach on Instagram.
"I agree with Jesse's mother in wanting as much evidence out there to help identify everyone involved in the murder of our two children," Amy Chan told PIX11 News. "With seven months going by and no arrests made, it makes me feel like the killers are getting away with their heinous murders."
The NYPD has publicly identified two suspects wanted in connection with the case: Steven Santiago and Jahmel Sanders, both residents of Baruch Houses.
Law enforcement believes Santiago and Sanders are affiliated with the Down the Hill gang and were allegedly seeking revenge when their associate Brandon Atkinson was fatally shot in the head on Avenue D and East Third Street on Sunday night May 15.
Members of the rival Up the Hill gang allegedly shot Atkinson, hours after Huang had been robbed of her expensive handbag and phone on the Lower East Side. Huang reportedly mentioned the Sunday robbery to friends she knew, who allegedly had gang ties.
Huang was friends with Parrilla from middle school days, and Parrilla gave her a ride home to Grand Street in the early morning hours of May 16. Parrilla was well known on the Lower East Side as a talented basketball player who had attended Genesee Community College upstate.
Huang was working several jobs to pay for a new apartment.
The friends were both 22.
Surveillance footage reportedly showed Santiago and Sanders pulling Parrilla from his silver Honda on Grand Street, shortly after he dropped off Huang, assaulting him and walking him over to a black car.
Four cars allegedly rendezvoused at Baruch Houses and then returned to Huang's house, with Parrilla's Honda in the group of vehicles. Huang got into the silver Honda, but her friend Jesse wasn't driving.
The friends were driven to Queens, where a gang rival of Down the Hill was allegedly shot. Then, Parrilla and Huang were taken to the golf course area in the Bronx, where they were fatally shot in the head and then placed in Parilla's burning car.
"My son had no part of what was going on," Michelle Morales said.
The mother said the Christmas holiday was tough without her only child.
"It was rough," Morales said, her voice quavering. "On holidays like this, we spend it with the ones that we love. And he was the most thing that I loved. And that was taken from me, along with the joy and spirit that I tend to feel on these special holidays."
PIX11 News learned in recent months that the four men seen leaving the crime scene got into a small Fiat but ended up ditching it on the northbound Major Deegan Expressway near 138th Street in the Bronx, burning it before they fled on foot.