Woman Fatally Shot In Head On Brooklyn Sidewalk By Boyfriend Who Then Kills Himself

A woman shot to death by her boyfriend — who then turned the gun on himself — on a Brooklyn sidewalk Tuesday morning might still be alive if she hadn’t followed him out of her home during an argument the night before, the victim’s heartbroken family said.

Gabriel Sanchez, 41, shot girlfriend Celina Ramos to death down the street from his Bushwick home before killing himself with the gun about 7:30 a.m., cops said.

He chased the screaming woman along Jefferson Ave. near Knickerbocker Ave. before grabbing her from behind and shooting her in the head, according to a nearby store worker who reviewed surveillance video of the slaying.

Moments later, Sanchez shot himself in the neck and when that didn’t end his life, he shot himself in the head too, the video shows.

A relative said the couple had been fighting at the apartment in Williamsburg Ramos shares with her grandmother the night before the slaying.

Ramos started seeing Sanchez around the end of last summer, according to the relatives, who asked not to be named. Ramos chased after Sanchez when he stormed out of her apartment during a quarrel Monday night, the relative said.

“I know they started to argue here,” the relative said. “He left and she went after him. Her grandmother told her, ‘Stay home, because tomorrow you got to take me to a doctor’s appointment. She said, ‘I’ll be back in the morning.’ And she never made it back.”

The dispute apparently escalated before it turned deadly down the street from Sanchez’s home the next morning.

Medics rushed Sanchez, known by his nickname “Chi,” to Woodhull Hospital and Ramos to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. Both died a short time later. A gun was found by cops near where Sanchez lay on the sidewalk.

Ramos’ relative said she got the news from her daughters.

“My daughters work at Woodhull, they told me,” the relative said. “They called me and told me, ‘Ma, Chi’s here. He shot himself in the neck and in the head.'”

The daughters had also seen Sanchez at the hospital several days earlier when he went in for an MRI because of seizures he had been having, the relative said.  She wondered if there was a connection to his condition and the shootings.

“He was a nice kid,” the relative said. “ I would never expect him to do something like this. Maybe something snapped. I don’t know.”

On Jan. 22, Sanchez was arrested for stalking and harassing a different woman, an ex-girlfriend. According to a law enforcement source, he is accused of e-mailing sexually explicit picture of himself to the woman, emailing her a picture of her home and and making comments suggesting he’d kill her and himself.

She spotted him at a bus stop, which led to stalking charges. He was due back in Brooklyn Criminal Court on the stalking and aggravated harassment charges on March 6.

Ramos’ relative said that Sanchez could appear “spacey” at times and that, while he briefly held down a warehouse job over the summer, he mostly made his money in the streets. She said the family has no idea why he killed Ramos and probably ever will

“It came out of nowhere,” she said. “Nobody knows why because obviously they’re both dead. So the only people who know are them.”

She said Ramos met Sanchez through her brother, an old friend of the killer.

“I have no idea why she was attracted to him,” she said. “No idea at all. He did not work. He’s from the street. That’s why I had no idea what attracted her.”

She said the Ramos’ brother is wracked with guilt.

“He can’t stop saying, ‘My sister didn’t deserve this,’” she said. “He told him [Sanchez] he didn’t want him with his sister. And he just stopped coming around but he kept seeing the sister.”

Ramos recently began working at a call center at the city Department of Education, the relatives said.

“It’s terrible,” the relative said. “She was a good kid. She just got a job with the Board of Ed. I don’t know what she was doing with him. She was working everyday. Her supervisors, they were hysterical on the phone. They couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘She did not deserve this.'”

Neighbors said Sanchez grew up in the area and moved to the block where the shooting took place about eight years ago.

“He was really nice,” an older resident told the Daily News. “He would help me with my groceries.”

Krystal Alejandro also knew Sanchez, describing him as “a regular kid in the street.”

“He would work at night, come home in the morning and then you wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day,” Alejandro, 37, said.