Alessia Mesquita, who was shot dead Monday.
Maya McFadden Photo
Officers guard crime scene, with victim shrouded on the street while officers wait for medical examiner to arrive.
In the view of horrified neighbors, a man shot and killed a 28-year-old woman in Fair Haven Heights Monday.
Police later Monday tracked down and arrested the alleged shooter. They also found the couple’s baby, with whom he had fled.
The shooting occurred at the corner of Clifton and Lenox Streets at 9:19 a.m.
The victim’s name was Alessia Mesquita.
The alleged shooter, who turned 28 years old on Monday and who had a Wallingford address, and Mesquita, who lived in the Heights, were in a relationship and had a 1‑year-old daughter together, according to Mesquita’s mother. The mother told the Independent mid-day at the scene that the 1‑year-old was missing. The mother described the alleged shooter as a “walking time bomb” because of mental health issues.
She also posted the alleged shooter’s photo on Facebook, along with a plea: “This animal … shot and killed my daughter this morning, then threw her body out on the street, my 1 year grand daughter is missing, please call New Haven police or my family …”
Officers tracked down the alleged shooter and the baby on Eastern Street, according to police. They arrested the man. The baby appeared unharmed but was taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Police Chief Renee Dominguez noted at a 3:30 p.m. press conference outside 1 Union Ave. that it’s unknown what long-term emotional impact the incident will have on the baby. She expressed gratitude that the baby did not appear to be physically injured. “Out of a tragic event, to have a child that is uninjured is amazing. It’s a small, small piece of hope,” the chief said.
The man is being held on $250,000 bond on a separate first-degree assault warrant out of West Haven, according to Dominguez. The police are still investigating the Monday murder; charges involving the abduction would result from that evidence-gathering.
Dominguez said the homicide grew out of a domestic dispute that began in a car. The 1‑year-old baby was in the car at the time. The baby remained in the car when the alleged shooter sped away from the scene.
Mesquita’s sister has established this GoFundMe page to help the family with funeral expenses. Mesquita also is survived by a son. (The alleged shooter is not the son’s father.)
Chief Dominguez credited neighbors for helping police solve the homicide so quickly.
“Right from the beginning,” she said, “multiple community members were able to lead us in the right direction and locate the child and also the suspect extremely fast.” The suspect was arrested without incident, Dominguez said.
“Pops,” Then Gruesome Sight
Contributed Photo
Officers attend to victim at the scene.
Neighbor Patricia Kane described hearing “loud popping sounds” at that moment, and went from her kitchen to her back deck to investigate.
She saw smoke coming from a four-door sedan stopped at the Clifton-Lenox intersection, she said.
Then she saw a man emerge from the driver’s side, go to the back of the car, and pull out a body.
He “threw it to the ground and then shot two more bullets into the victim,” Kane reported. “He then got back into the driver’s side of the car and proceeded at a high rate of speed down Clifton Street.”
One neighbor counted six gun shots, and another said the victim was between 25 and 30 years old, according to Kane.
Kane saw him “smash into a metal pole on the sidewalk,” stop, go into reverse into a driveway, then speed uphill.
A cop at a nearby construction site came by, “saw the victim in the road,” then called it in. Other officers arrived “almost instantaneously,” according to Kane. One neighbor got the shooter’s license plate and reported it to police. One of the officers followed the shooter’s vehicle.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police blocked off the street, where the woman’s covered body lay, and began taking photos and collecting other evidence.
News of the murder devastated people who knew Mesquita and her family.
“I’m broken,” said one childhood friend of Mesquita from the Hill neighborhood (who asked not to have her name used). “She was always funny, outgoing, caring. She always liked being with friends or family.”
9 Homicides In 2021
Monday’s homicide was the ninth already in 2021 in New Haven.
In January, Alfreda Youmans, 50, and Jeffrey Dotson, 42, were found dead by the police inside a Winthrop Avenue apartment, Jorge Osorio-Caballero, 32, was shot and killed in Fair Haven, Marquis Winfrey, 31, was shot and killed in Newhallville, and Joseph Vincent Mattei, 28, was shot and killed in the Hill. Someone shot Kevin Jiang, 26, to death in Goatville on Feb. 6. Angel Rodriguez, 21, was shot to death in Fair Haven in mid-February, his body dumped by the Mill River in East Rock. Dwaneia Alexandria Turner, 28, was shot to death in the Hill on March 16 during an argument with two other women.
In separate incidents, a 20-year-old man is in critical condition in the hospital after someone shot him in the back just before 9 p.m. Sunday at Pardee and East Ferry streets in Fair Haven, according to police spokesperson Capt. Anthony Duff. And a 35-year-old Meriden man is hospitalized in stable condition after someone shot him in thigh at the 50 Fitch St. restaurant and bar Saturday night around 10:40. A bullet also grazed his ear. “Prior to the shooting, it is believed the victim was involved in a dispute that resulted in his ejection from the establishment,” Capt. Duff wrote in a release issued Monday.