Shemel Mercurius was 16 when she was shot and killed in her East Flatbush, Brooklyn apartment on May 31, 2016. A Guyanese immigrant who arrived in the United States about four years earlier and hoped to become a nurse, she was babysitting her 3-year-old cousin when a man forced his way into the residence. According to accounts, after a brief, heated exchange the intruder, identified as 24-year-old Taariq Stephens, shot Shemel with a submachine gun. First responders found her slumped over a toy car and her cousin covered in blood; Shemel identified her attacker to police before she died at Kings County Hospital about 90 minutes later.

The NYPD named Taariq Stephens the primary suspect, supported by Shemel’s dying declaration and surveillance footage that placed him at the building with the weapon. Stephens turned himself in two days later and was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, and endangering the welfare of a child. The family’s loss and the presence of a young child at the scene remain central to this case. Does anyone have information about Shemel’s life in East Flatbush or the night of the shooting?