Apr. 3, 2023 By Bill Parry
A Far Rockaway grandmother was found guilty of gunning down her daughter’s boyfriend, who was the father of her newborn grandchild, in his Woodhaven home in 2020.
Suzanne Olin, 68, of Redfern Avenue, was convicted by a jury on March 31 in Queens Supreme Court of manslaughter in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on April 3.
According to the charges, on the afternoon of July 26, 2020, Shaka Ifil was in the home he shared with Olin’s daughter on 91st Avenue near 85th Street in Woodhaven at around 2 p.m., when an upstairs neighbor heard a commotion in his apartment, walked downstairs and found his door open. Ifil was on the floor with a gunshot wound to his back.
The neighbor called 911 and when police from the 102nd Precinct in Richmond Hill arrived, the 40-year-old Ifil told them he was dying and that his girlfriend’s mother shot him. EMS rushed Ifil to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead hours later. The bullet hit several major organs and blood vessels, according to the charges.
Security camera video showed a woman who appeared to be smoking a cigarette get out of an Access-A-Ride car service vehicle near Ifil’s home at about 1:51 p.m. on July 26, 2020, and then leave the home at 2:01 p.m. The woman was later identified as Olin and a DNA test of a cigarette butt found in the apartment was linked to Olin.
An investigation revealed that three days before the shooting, Olin’s daughter filed a domestic incident report with police alleging Ifil broke a door in their apartment. Police responded, and body camera footage showed the broken door. The girlfriend did not appear to be injured. Olin was arrested on Sept. 18, 2020.
“The jury convicted this defendant in the cold-blooded death of the father of her grandchild,” Katz said. “She is being held to account.”
Olin faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison by Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant on May 9.