PHOTO: An accused killer was nabbed last month in Sacramento, Calif., after fleeing his residence (pictured) on Beach 32nd Street in Far Rockaway in January. Photo Courtesy of Google
By Forum Staff
A rampage of jealousy at a Far Rockaway apartment that led to the wounding of one woman and the shooting death of another has ended with the capture of the alleged killer in Sacramento, California.
Police there apprehended and returned the fugitive back to Queens, where he will face 25 years to life in prison if convicted in the brutal slaying of his live-in girlfriend and the wounding of a female neighbor in the building they lived in at the end of January.
Tyquan Long, 29, of 333 Beach 32 Street in Far Rockaway is believed to have been suspicious that his girlfriend was engaged in an affair with a neighbor in their apartment building. Other neighbors confirm the couple had a “story relationship at best.”
On the ill-fated day, Long was captured on video surveillance as he entered his apartment and left several minutes later carrying what appeared to be a firearm. He took the gun to the lobby where he encountered Barbara Romano, the 51-year-old mother of the man he believed his girlfriend Joann Gravette was seeing. He allegedly approached Romano and told her that her son was “playing games.”
According to police sources, he then pointed the weapon at her and fired three or four times. She tried to take cover behind a security desk and was hit once in the hand before she was able to escape to a utility closet and call police.
A second neighbor reportedly heard arguing, “a loud commotion,” and then a “boom” coming from the Long/Gravette apartment. Sources say a violent argument broke out when Long confronted Gravette about sleeping with another man in the building. That man’s sister, Kimberly Alicea, was quoted as saying Gravette was getting scared of Long. “The relationship was becoming abusive and she didn’t know what to do.”
Upon arrival, police found Gravette, 36, lying face down on the floor with multiple gunshot wounds about her body. She was pronounced dead later that day.
“The defendant’s suspicions of a love triangle turned tragic and violent, resulting in the senseless death of a young woman and the wounding of an innocent nonparticipant,” said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Long is charged with second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder, and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and was ordered held without bail.
