According to reports, a suspect was detained Tuesday night in connection with the double homicide of a New York City nail salon owner and her friend, whose bodies were discovered 10 months ago in a burned-out car dumped by a golf course.
According to the N.Y. Daily News, Jahmel Sanders, 30, was detained at a homeless shelter in the Bronx at around 1:30 pm in relation to the kidnapping and deaths of Nikki Huang, 23, and her friend and former college basketball player Jesse Parrilla, 22, on May 16. Sanders’ arrest was also confirmed by law enforcement sources to WNBC and PIX 11 News.
When firefighters extinguished the burning Honda Accord owned by Parrilla’s mother that had been abandoned close to the Pelham Split Rock Golf Course, they found the bullet-riddled bodies of Huang and Parrilla, both of whom were from Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“I thought it would be happy news, but it doesn’t bring my daughter back,” Huang’s mother, Amy Chan, told the Daily News. “I am happy that we’re getting somewhere.”
Michelle Morales, Parrila’s mother, expressed her gratitude to The News. “Ten months has been a long time. My family has been in excruciating pain as they have been grieving. A good citizen, my son. He wasn’t due what occurred to him. He only possessed a pure heart.”
Huang’s mother previously told PIX 11 that Huang was robbed of her designer Louis Vuitton bag that contained her cell phone after leaving a shift at her family’s restaurant on Grand Street.
The young woman, who also ran a nail salon, allegedly told members of the “Up the Hill” gang about the violent purse snatching because she thought the thieves were from the rival “Down the Hill” gang, according to the Daily News. Police claim that as retaliation, 21-year-old Brandon Atkinson was killed outside a deli after being shot twice in the back of the head.
According to reports, investigators do not think Atkinson was a part of the robbery of Huang, but his brother was a powerful “Down the Hill” gang member.
Less than an hour after Atkinson was shot dead, a member of a competing gang and an uninvolved bystander were shot and injured.
Huang and Parrilla were both abducted and used to trick a rival gang banger out of his Ridgewood, Queens, apartment. Parrilla was thought to be an innocent bystander who was only targeted because of his friendship with Huang. According to reports, the target was hit in the face but survived. Later, Huang and Parrilla were both shot in the head and other places on their bodies before being abandoned in the on fire car.
Steven Santiago, 34, a second suspect in the deaths of Huang and Parrilla, is still at large. He reportedly belongs to Atkinson’s stepfamily.
Sanders was apprehended on Tuesday and brought into the 45th Precinct station, where he reportedly faced 17 charges, including manslaughter, murder, robbery, grand larceny, kidnapping, arson, and criminal possession of a firearm and firearm use.
