As 16-year-old Shemel Mercurius lay dying from three gunshot wounds in May 2016, a patrol cop administered first aid — and asked her questions about who had attacked her.
In
New York City’s Brooklyn Superior Court on Monday,
the officer
testified that Shemel used her dying breaths to name 25-year-old Taariq
Stephens as her alleged killer. Stephens is on trial on second-degree
murder and weapons charges.
Daly
testified that Shemel drifted in and out of consciousness while they
waited for an ambulance. He told jurors that, during one period of
lucidity, the teen told detectives that Stephens allegedly wanted to be
her boyfriend but she wasn’t interested.
Stephens
and Shemel had allegedly met at a child care center a week before the
killing, on May 31, 2016, and they exchanged phone numbers.
Shemel
was babysitting her 3-year-old cousin at a Brooklyn apartment at the
time of the shooting. “There was a 3-year-old male child, and he was
covered in blood crying next to the victim,” Sgt. Ryan Habermehl
testified. “It took about 20 minutes for EMS to arrive.”
The ambulance arrived at 6:55 p.m. and took the teen to Kings County Hospital, where she died about an hour later.
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