EAST FLATBUSH — A 16-year-old girl was shot and killed in her apartment while babysitting her 3-year-old cousin Tuesday afternoon, and police are now looking for her ex-boyfriend, sources and family said.
Shemel Mercurius, a junior at Edward R. Murrow High School, had picked up the toddler from day care earlier in the day and was in their shared apartment at 1406 Brooklyn Ave., near Foster Avenue, minutes before 6 p.m. when she was shot three times, an NYPD spokesman said.
She may have been visited by her 19-year-old ex-boyfriend, sources said.
Building residents heard the young cousin's cries after the gunfire, said the boy's mother, Latoya Pryce, 31.
"My son was in the apartment screaming. The neighbors heard him," said Pryce, who is also Shemel's aunt.
"I can't even tell you. I'm at a loss for words. [My son's] not eating. He said a man took the gun and there were gunshot pops," Pryce added.
As young as he was, the boy understood something was wrong, his mother said.
"He knew she was hurt," Pryce said.
Shemel, who shared the sixth-floor apartment with her aunt and young cousin, had been hit three times in the arm, but one of the bullets also punctured her chest, sources said.
She was still semi-conscious when police arrived, but she was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital, sources said.
Afterwards, someone using Shemel's phone called her father, Dexter Mercurius, 38, who was in a meeting and missed the call, he said. When the father called back, a detective answered and told him what had happened, so he rushed to the hospital.
"I didn't want to hear what they were telling me," said Mercurius, who emigrated with his daughter from Guyana around 2012.
The heartbroken father visited the scene of the shooting Wednesday morning.
"No matter what I do, she can't come back. It's unthinkable," he said.
"I'm just standing here because I have to stand here. I'm the father. I know I have to be here and be strong. God is holding me up right now," he added.
Investigators were looking to talk to the victim's ex-boyfriend Wednesday morning, police and sources said.
There have been no arrests, and the circumstances of the shooting weren't immediately clear, an NYPD spokesman noted.
Family remembered Shemel as deeply dedicated and caring.
"My daughter was a good kid. That's my first child. She liked dancing. She was very responsible. She said she always wanted to be a nurse. She was very caring. She liked helping people," Mercurius explained.
Pryce wept as she remembered her niece.
"Shemel, she's like a daughter to me," the aunt said.
"She was always smiling, very friendly. She's not a niece. She's my daughter. I feel like I gave birth to her."
