Murder of teenager in front of her twin sister stuns Brooklyn neighborhood

Four days after a 19-year-old woman was fatally stabbed in front of her twin sister outside a Brooklyn deli, law enforcement officials are still searching for the man accused of killing her when she rejected his advances.

Police identified the man as Veo Kelly, 20, of Brooklyn, Joseph Kenny, the chief of police, told reporters Thursday. He said U.S. marshals are looking for Mr. Kelly, whose criminal history includes an arrest on theft charges.

Early Sunday morning, the woman, Samyia Spain, and her twin brother Sanyia had been up for hours playing games at their father’s apartment with friends. Then the sisters and the rest of the group went to the Natural Plus deli on the corner of Fourth Avenue and St. Marks Place in Park Slope, a favorite spot for the twins where the owners knew them by name.

The friends arrived around 2 a.m., police said. As they waited for food, a group of young, intoxicated men, including Mr. Kelly, approached them, Chef Kenny said. Mr. Kelly began flirting with the twins and insisted on their contact information, police said.

Mr. Kelly had never met the twins and was in Park Slope for a party in a building next to the deli, Chef Kenny said.

When the women sent him away, he became more aggressive. Moments later, the twins’ friends and deli workers pushed him and his companions out of the store and locked the door, a deli employee said. The women and their friends stayed inside to finish their meal.

When they stepped outside, Mr. Kelly was waiting with a knife and attacked the twins, slashing Sanyia in the arm and fatally stabbing Samyia in the chest, police said. Sanyia was treated at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn, where her sister was pronounced dead.

Investigators searched Mr. Kelly’s apartment on Hancock Street in the Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood this week, police said. They found the clothes he was wearing the night Samyia was murdered.

In Park Slope, friends and neighbors were stunned that the twins were attacked, apparently because they refused to give anyone a phone number. Many expressed anger at the owners of the building next to the deli, blaming them for allowing parties where, neighbors said, underage people lined up to drink inside on weekends.

At a vigil on Wednesday evening, more than 100 people gathered outside the deli, many surrounding themselves with the twins’ father, Steven Spain, who cried as he struggled to talk about Samyia.

“How could you take her?” he exclaimed. “I do not understand.”

His friends took turns talking into a megaphone, many of them warning young men nearby that women have the right to stay out late without worrying about being attacked.

Darryl Hobson, pastor and vice president of the 79th Precinct Clergy Council, said he was struck by a young woman who described the pressure she felt to give a man her phone number just so he would leave her alone .

“It just gave me a different perspective on what women in the world are dealing with,” Pastor Hobson, 65, said in an interview Thursday.

The location of Samyia’s death, near the popular deli, was also disturbing, said their neighbor, Najee Wright, 23. It is a popular gathering place for those who live in Wyckoff Gardens, the New York City Housing Authority neighborhood where the twins grew up. , and it’s also close to where their father lives. The deli employees knew their usual orders: Samyia preferred the honey-glazed turkey sandwich, said Mohammed Albaher, a cashier at the store who had known the sisters since they were little girls.

Octavia Bell, the mother of an 18-year-old man who was with the twins that night, said her son is distraught, unable to cry or even talk about what happened.

“I’m really, really scared for him because pain shows up in so many ways,” she said. “I don’t want it to be harmful to him.”

Samyia and Sanyia “practically lived at my house,” Ms. Bell said. Samyia was part of a close group of friends and was part of a cooking club with Mrs. Bell.

Samyia “was my favorite of the group,” Ms. Bell said. “The one with her head on her shoulders, that makes sense to these children.”

In the hours after Samyia was killed, Yvette Ramos, who grew up with the twins’ mother, watched Sanyia cope with her sister’s death. At first, she suppressed her pain to comfort her mother, Lashawn Goodson, whose grief is all-consuming, Ms. Ramos said.

Sanyia was too furious to talk to the police, Ms. Ramos said, and had to be convinced. “I told her, come on, put on your sneakers, we’re going to the police station,” Ms. Ramos said.

Sanyia finally broke down about 24 hours after her sister’s death, Ms. Ramos said.

“She said, ‘Auntie, my sister isn’t here.’ And all I can do is hold her and tell her it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to scream,” Ms. Ramos said.