News of the horror came from the mouths of mere babes.“Daddy shot mommy!” two hysterical children — a 4-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy — screamed inside a Queens bodega. “Daddy shot mommy!”
Around the corner from the Casablanca deli on Saturday, cops were combing a bloody crime scene. An unhinged former cop shot and killed his wife in front of their two young kids in Ozone Park just before 11 a.m., police sources said.
Cops found ex-cop Kevin Canty, 43, stumbling around drunk near the corner of 97th and Centreville Sts. He was arrested without further violence.
Paramedics, meanwhile, were feverishly working on 40-year-old Jessica Mera. They took the mom from the couple’s home on 104th St., past the front door adorned with an Easter bunny decoration and into a waiting ambulance. Mera, blasted in the chest, could not be saved. She died at Jamaica Hospital.
As cops carted the dreadlocked gunman to the 102nd Precinct stationhouse, a neighbor took the traumatized children to the nearby deli.
"The boy told me personally: 'My dad shot my mom and there's blood all over,’” said the neighbor who asked to remain anonymous.
“My wife heard gunshots and the kids were running out on the street,” he added. “They were banging on car doors as cars were passing by. They were trying to get help, someone to listen to them.”
Before Canty was arrested, cops in body armor and carrying bullet-proof shields descended on the home. NYPD helicopters hovered overhead. A 911 caller told police that a man fitting Canty’s description was trying to open the doors of unoccupied cars a mile and a half away from the crime scene, authorities said.
Canty appeared delirious while handcuffed and repeatedly banged his head against the inside of a squad car window.
About 10 stunned friends and family of Mera’s had little to say as they lingered at the entrance of the emergency room.
“They are going through a really tough time right now,” said one man who only identified himself as Mera’s friend.
“You have no idea what this family has been through — this is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Several neighbors said the couple had four children, though it was unclear if any of them were from previous relationships.
The callous crime amounted to a stunning downfall for Canty, sources said. In July 2012 the former transit cop was hailed as a hero for helping save the life of a man who suffered a heart attack in the Union Square subway station.
Police sources said he retired last year due to a disability.
The nature of the disability was unclear.
Canty and his wife had a tumultuous relationship, several neighbors said.
“They were always fighting. They’d fight outside, they would fight everywhere,” said Joanne Bagley, 52. “They were not a happy couple. I guess it was inevitable.”
Shanique Varlack, 22, described Canty as a drunken terror who often threatened his wife.
“He told more than one person - 'I'm gonna kill this b---h one day,’” said Varlack.
“Everybody is just so distraught. He's a cop. He's supposed to protect us. He took an oath and now? He's a murderer. She did not deserve to die.”
The shaken deli worker who consoled the distraught kids said Canty and Mera were regulars.
“I’d see him everyday,” deliman Fez Atlas said. “I knew what he’d want when he came in. He would come in, get a pack of Newports.
“His wife would come in, in the morning with the kids,” he added. “She’d buy the girl a bag of potato chips and the boy pistachios. Then this happened.”
A man in Laurelton, Queens, who only identified himself as Canty’s uncle-in-law said of the ex-cop, “He’s a nice guy. This is the first I’m hearing about this.”
But other neighbors said Canty had a menacing presence.
“He’s kind of a scary guy, kind of intimidating. You got to talk to him for him to talk to you,” said Danny Ali, 30.
“He told me he was a detective. About a year ago, I saw he had a broken hand. He said he broke it in a fight. He wouldn’t say more about it.”
Chris Ris said he often saw Canty around Ozone Park wearing construction boots and dusty pants, apparently on the way home from a job in construction. On nice days, Canty’s wife sat on the stoop with her children, Ris said. “To me he seemed like a nice guy,” said Ris, a music producer. “I’d never dream he’d kill his wife.”
News of the horror came from the mouths of mere babes.
