By Amy Zimmer and Jeff Mays
DNAinfo Staff
MANHATTAN — A star high school football player from East Harlem's Jefferson Houses was stabbed to death during a fight in a Bronx parking lot Tuesday, just hours after the 19-year-old graduated, police said.
Isayah Muller, of East 115th Street, had just left his commencement ceremony for the Bronx's Truman High School held at the nearby campus of Lehman College when his father, Andre, got into an argument with a parking lot attendant whom he had accused of stealing something from his car, according NYPD chief spokesman Paul Browne.
The family had parked at M.T. Jerome Town Corp. at 2801 Jerome Ave. and 198th Street around 9 a.m. and headed back to the lot to pick up the car around 4 p.m. before a celebratory dinner on City Island.
Andre Muller, 40, realized the property — reportedly expensive cologne — was missing only after he began driving away.
Cops said the dad turned the car around and drove back to the lot where he and Isayah got out of the car and a fight ensued, leaving the teen stabbed in the chest.
Muller and his father rushed back to the car just outside the lot where the teen's mother and girlfriend were waiting, cops said. The family raced to a clinic 10 blocks away, where medical personnel called an ambulance to take the boy to St. Barnabas Hospital.
He was pronounced dead at 5:56 p.m., Browne said.
"[He's a] good, good kid," said a tearful woman identified as the boy's aunt Wednesday. "Yesterday was the graduation."
It was unclear how many people were involved or who stabbed Isayah.
Andre Muller was arrested and charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
As running back for the Truman Mustangs, Isayah Muller let his team to their first-ever PSAL Bowl title last year, the Daily News reported. He ran for an impressive 290 yards and scored two touchdowns in the Mustangs' victory over Beach Channel, 23-20.
The tragic stabbing left neighbors devastated.
A man who identified himself as Dev said Muller was known for concentrating on school and sports.
"I just saw him on his prom night last week and he was looking sharp. He was a cool, cool dude," Dev said.
"He was straight doing the sports thing. He was a school dude who I heard was getting a scholarship. He was focused on his football thing," he said.
Diane Cobbs, 57, a woman who has lived in the Jefferson Houses all her life said: "It's a sad thing to take a young person's life out of anger.
"He was going to college and was going to make something of himself. That means a lot in this neighborhood."
Tributes poured in on a Facebook page that sprang up in the wake of the brutal slaying.
"A young man with such a gifted talent," Estephanie Colon wrote. "Didn't deserve this. My respect & condolences go out to your family."
"Died over sumthin [sic] so petty," Vernon Nitty Henderson Jr. wrote. "RIP homie."
