Two Queens cousins battling over the sale of a home were killed in a suspected murder-suicide, relatives and police sources said.
Police responded to a call about shots fired at a home on 116th Road in Jamaica just before midnight Friday, and found the 37- and 41-year-old men dead, authorities said.
Both cousins, who family members said grew up together, were found with gunshot wounds to the head, sources said.
A man shot his cousin and himself over the sale of a relative’s home in Jamaica, Queens, police sources and relatives said. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
“It was an issue with the sale of the house, some disagreement with how the money was going to be divided up,” a 62-year-old uncle who lives in the home’s basement told The Post.
The younger man, who the relative identified as Prince, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to cops and family, while his elder cousin Antoine succumbed to his injuries later at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
Prince went to the home to assist Antoine in selling Antoine’s house, family members said.
The wife of the cousin who was shot said she grew worried about her husband when he didn’t pick his daughter up at school in the afternoon. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
Antoine gave Prince the power of attorney to sell the house because Prince was familiar with the real estate market, the family said. But the cousins began arguing over the sale.
Prince’s wife grew concerned because her husband wasn’t returning her calls or texts and failed to pick up his daughter at school that afternoon, the uncle said.
She began using her 360-phone tracking app to see where her husband was and noticed his location hadn’t changed for two hours.
The man who was selling the house had given power of attorney to the other cousin, who knew the market, family said. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
She went to the house and called 911 for two wellness checks.
A neighbor said police came to the home twice but said they couldn’t go inside.
“She was telling them she had the GPS on her phone and it was pinging from that location,” the neighbor said of the wife.
The two cousins had been in a dispute over the sale, the wife said. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
When an uncle who lived in the basement let the wife inside, she found her husband lying dead next to the front door, the uncle said. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
When the uncle came home, he let the wife inside.
“I unlocked the door,” the uncle said. “When she cut the light on, she saw Prince’s body leaning against the front door. He wasn’t moving. She started screaming.”
“I grabbed her and I said, ‘We gotta get out of here because he’s probably still in here,’” the uncle recalled. “She said she heard something coming from upstairs. When we were coming out we heard the gunshot.”
The two men had grown up together, the family said. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
When the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit responded, they found Antoine in a bedroom holding a handgun with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head, the sources said.