UNTIMELY DEATH

New York Couple Killed In a Spate of Gang Violence Over a Stolen Purse: Report

One member of the couple, Jesse Parrilla, appears to have been uninvolved with the gangs in question, with one officer saying he was simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Two young New Yorkers, Jesse Parrilla and Nikki Huang, were murdered in the culmination of a series of shootings between two local gangs sparked by a stolen purse, law enforcement told the New York Post. Parrilla and Huang, 22 and 23 respectively, were found shot to death and burned in a car at a Bronx park, with NYPD sources telling the Post that the killers were members of Manhattan's Down the Hill gang. Those sources believe that the violence began after Down the Hill members robbed Huang of her purse. Huang then presumably told her friends in the rival Up the Hill group about the mugging, tipping off a series of shootings and then the kidnapping of Huang while she was hanging out with Parrilla. The gang members then forced her at gunpoint to call a friend, who was then shot outside of his house, before they killed Parrilla and Huang. Parrilla does not appear to have been connected to either group, with one NYPD source telling the post that, “Right now it looks like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”