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The woman accused of gunning down her ex-girlfriend execution-style in broad daylight on a Park Slope street was ordered held without bail at her arraignment Thursday.
Latisha Bell, 38, was arraigned during a virtual Brooklyn Criminal Court hearing on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to the Wednesday afternoon attack on 51-year-old Nichelle Thomas.
Assistant District Attorney Wilfredo Coto said Bell and Thomas dated for nearly 20 years — and during that time, there were 14 domestic incident reports filed in which Bell was the “aggressor” for 10 of them.
The cold-blooded 1 p.m. shooting at Fourth Avenue and St. Marks Place was captured on surveillance video, obtained by The Post.
In the video, Bell can be seen running up to Thomas from behind and blasting the victim once in the back of the head at point-blank range before fleeing, prosecutors charge.
Thomas was rushed to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Hours after the shooting, Bell surrendered to cops at the 78th Precinct station house.
When Bell turned herself in, she handed over the gun, which was in her purse, and was wearing the same clothing she had on in the video, Coto said.
“The defendant walked into the precinct and makes admissions in regards to the shooting and directs officers to the gun which is recovered from defendant’s bag on the defendant’s person,” explained Coto.
Judge Maria Aragona remanded Bell and ordered her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Her next court date was scheduled for April 27.
Outside the Brooklyn courthouse, a woman who identified herself as Bell’s sister defended the suspect to reporters and described her sibling as “mentally ill.”
“[My sister] tried to leave [Thomas] alone. The woman kept going back to her every time she see my sister doing well, she kept going back to her knowing she was mentally ill,” said the relative, who declined to give her name.
“When my sister left her, she should have kept going. You don’t play with the mentally ill,” she said.
Meanwhile, neighbors of Thomas, who lived at an apartment building in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill, said she had at least two children as well as grandchildren.
“She was a beautiful person. I know she was going to school to be an ACS worker or something,” said Maria Lopez, 70, who has lived in that building for nearly five decades.
On Wednesday, neighbors smelled gas in the victim’s building and knocked on her door to find her son in tears clutching his mother’s photo, said Lopez.
“We saw the son with her picture in his hand and [he] was drastically crying and he couldn’t even answer us right. We didn’t even understand what he was saying,” Lopez said. “That was horrible.”
“I was devastated,” the distraught neighbor continued. “I started crying. He said he has gotten a call from his cousin or something that she had died.”
Lopez said she was stunned by the shooting.
“I can’t believe in broad daylight people would do something as drastic,” Lopez said. “It’s like if we are in the movies or something. It’s really hard.”
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