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In a tragic incident that unfolded in a dilapidated apartment in Queens, a young man spent his last moments embraced by a relative he had been staying with. The relative, overwhelmed with sorrow, recounted the heartbreaking scene to the Daily News.
Jonathan Adams, merely 18 years old, had been residing with his cousin on 108th Ave. near 173rd St. in South Jamaica. His life was brutally cut short when he was fatally shot in the head on a Thursday morning. The cousin, identified only as Anderson, described how Adams had brought a sense of joy and camaraderie during his brief stay.
“I miss him waking me up every morning, joking, passing me the blunt and all that,” Anderson recalled wistfully. “For the four days he was here, we had a lot of fun—four days of fun. Then, out of nowhere, this tragedy struck.”
On the morning of the fatal shooting, Anderson explained that he and Adams had ventured out to a local store. Afterward, Anderson lingered at a nearby park while Adams returned to the apartment alone. Upon Anderson’s return, he was met with a horrifying sight—Adams, gravely injured, lay in the living room, fighting for his life.
“He was still breathing. He was alive. He was talking to me. He kept saying, ‘They shot me. They shot me,’” Anderson recounted in a voice heavy with emotion. Immediately, Anderson called emergency services and the police in a desperate bid to save his cousin.
When Anderson returned home he found Adams mortally wounded in the living room.
“He was still breathing. He was alive. He was talking to me. He kept saying, ‘They shot me. They shot me,’” Anderson said. “When I seen what happened I called EMS and police.”
Anderson said he believes Adams called his pot dealer to buy some weed and wonders if the dealer killed him. Police rounded up six people in the home for questioning but as of Sunday had made no arrests.
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Police investigate the fatal shooting inside a home on 108th Avenue in Queens on Thursday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Anderson said he was the victim of a home invasion robbery five months ago and the door to his home was still broken along with the windows. City Buildings Department records show multiple complaints from neighbors who believed the large house had been illegally subdivided into apartments.
Adams was autistic and suffered from ADHD and has been spiraling ever since the COVID pandemic disrupted his schooling and therapy.
In the days leading up to his death, he was ducking a family court warrant and a looming sentence to a juvenile facility, according to his heartbroken adoptive mother, who didn’t give her name.
She said she last saw him a week before his death when he visited her Laurelton home.
“He came and hugged me, said ‘Mommy, I love you,’” she recounted.
“I said, ‘Let me put you in a car and take you to your lawyer.’ He said, ‘Yes, let me go to the store.” I said, ‘I know if you go to the store you ain’t coming back.’ And he went to the store.”
She never saw him again.
Obtained by Daily News
Jonathan Adams, 18, was shot dead inside a Queens home on Thursday. (Obtained by Daily News)
Adams’ mother adopted him when he was 21 days old through a foster agency. She adopted his older brother before him, then later adopted his younger brother and sister.
She described Adams as a bright young man, but like many children with special needs, he didn’t cope well with at-home schooling and therapy during the COVID lockdown.
“He was a smart boy but he was fighting a lot of demons,” she said. “He had a lot of mental health issues and it was so hard.”.
His grades slipped and he stopped taking his medication. About three years ago, he had a minor scrape with the law, his mother said.
“He and his friends went and took somebody’s coat. And that’s where all his problems started,” his mother said. That led to probation, which he wasn’t following, and a residential six-month drug treatment program, which he didn’t complete.
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Police investigate after Jonathan Adams, 18, was shot dead inside a Queens home on Thursday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
A family court judge ordered him held for two years but he didn’t turn himself in, leading to a warrant for his arrest, she said.
“He would come home sometimes. I would say ‘Listen, turn yourself over to family court.’ When I told him that he would always leave,” she said. “What I wanted the courts to do for him is to get him a program that could help him to treat what’s going on (mentally). I know something was going on up here. He’d tell me, he’d say, ‘Mommy, Please help me. I’m on the street, I don’t want to be on the street.’”
Despite his troubles, his slaying came as a shock to his family.
“He’s a smart boy, a loving boy … He’s always laughing, always dancing, making himself funny for us to laugh,” his mother said.
“I can’t believe it. I know that he’s dead but I’m still saying it’s not real. I’m lost.”
