Holiday Horror:
Queens’ Worst Christmas Crimes

A crowd gathers in Howard Beach to protest the racist murders of Dec. 20, 1989.

By LIZ Goff
Chestnuts roasting over an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Yuletide carols being sung by a choir – and six dead in a college point massacre.

It’s no secret that crime doesn’t take a holiday. Heartless criminals aren’t focused on the sound of jingle bells around the holidays. In fact, the only sounds associated with thugs and murderers at Christmas time are the sirens screaming toward the scene of a holiday crime.

The following is a compilation of some of the most deadly holiday crimes in Queens history.

December 20, 1986:
12:40 a.m.
156-71 Cross Bay Blvd.
It was the night that turned Howard Beach from a neighborhood into an incident.
Michael Griffith, 23, and his two companions hadn’t planned on walking the streets of Howard Beach that night, but the car Griffith and the others were driving broke down on an isolated stretch of Cross Bay Blvd., so the men went for help.
They stopped at New Park Pizza to use the phone, but the man behind the counter said “no.” The three men ordered slices and sat to decide what they would do.
When Griffith and his two friends left the pizzeria, there were more then a dozen white men and teens waiting for them outside. Racial slurs were shouted, along with threats, and then the baseball bats came out.
The gang beat Griffith and the others. But some how, Griffith and Cedric Sandiford, 36, managed to get away. They ran to the edge of the Belt Parkway, where the gang caught up with Sandiford and beat him horrifically.
The city filled with rage. Rallys were held in Howard Beach, where a thousand blacks walked through local streets, led by Rev. Al Sharpton.
A year later, 12 young men in their 20s were convicted in the hate crime. Three were sentenced to maximum of thirty years. One teen was acquitted.
All three are free today, having served the minimum required time.

December 17, 1994:
8:30 p.m.
83rd St. and Grand Ave., Elmhurst
Wen Ping Hsu, 46, started his bloody rampage when he went to his landlord, Chang Ming Lee, 40, to pay the rent on his basement apartment at the three-story building on 83rd St.
Lee refused the rent, and told Hsu he had to go. The landlord’s words were followed by four rapid-fire blasts. Hsu shot Lee twice in the head and once in the abdomen. He then packed his briefcase with ammunition and headed for the Tung Shing House Restaurant, on 97th St. and Queens Blvd.
There Hsu confronted his wife, Shelly Shyu PingYin, who worked as a cashier at the restaurant.
Hsu entered the restaurant at 9:40 p.m., and when Yin spotted him she tried to move away - walking slowly toward the kitchen. Hsu opened the briefcase, raised his 9-mm handgun and shot his pregnant wife, 41, in the chest.
A cop outside the topless bar Wiggles heard the shot and took off after Hsu, calling for backup on his police radio. The cop followed Hsu to a garage where he had just shot Lakhraj Dalipram, 31, in the head in an attempt to steal his car.
That’s when Hsu was spotted by police officers Thomas Koehler and Charles Martin. Hsu fired at the cops and Koehler went down-and suddenly Hsu was surrounded by cops.
Hsu reloaded his weapon and started firing round after round, at the cops. What followed was a deafening, 13-minutes of gunfire between Hsu and the cops.
Hsu shot off at least 48 rounds, and the cops responded with 248 rounds, striking Hsu multiple times. Hsu took 40 rounds before he stopped shooting.

January 7, 1995: 2 a.m. 25-34 120th St.,
College Point
Three men knocked on the apartment door of the Ramirez family at the Skyline Terrace Condominium at about 2 a.m., sending people inside the apartment scattering.
Two men, Pablo Gomez and Alex DeJesus, let the two into the apartment. The three men started yelling “where’s the money?” then opened fire striking Gomez and DeJesus multiple times in the head and chest.
The trio split up and began searching for the others – Esperanza Ramirez Lopez, 15, Paola Andrea Lopez, 17, Melinda Wynne, 15, and Ana-Malena Jaramillo, 19.
“One by one, they all had to die”, police said.
The six victims, all Colombian nationals, were shot and stabbed multiple times. Most had their hands tied, and most had been tortured. Police recovered 19 shell casings at the apartment.
Police arrested Enrique Rodriguez, 28 and Saul “Cube Angelo, 20, two days later. The cops recovered $30,000 in cash in a trash compactor in the apartment kitchen, and traces of cocaine in a blender. The cops also found wire records showing the transfer of funds to Medellin, Colombia.
Cops said the three men were “first-timers who bungled a robbery.”

December 21, 1996:
7 a.m.
94th St. Astoria Blvd.,
E. Elmhurst
Police officer Charles Davis took a job at Ira Epstein’s check cashing for Christmas presents for his 6-year old daughter, Arielle.
Epstein, 40, and Davis, 38, were ambushed by a gang of thugs as they opened the store for business.
Davis was shot multiple times in the head and chest. He died a short while later at Elmhurst Hospital Center. Epstein was shot twice in the back and died immediately.
Eyewitnesses said Epstein and Davis were ambushed by armed thugs and led into the store with their hands over their heads. Then there was repeated, rapid gunfire – and the killers fled, empty-handed.
George Bell, 19, Gary Johnson, 22, and John Marky, 19, were charged in the murders. Bell could have faced the death penalty. All three are behind bars for life.