Geisha Kow­lessar

A Trinida­di­an woman who mi­grat­ed to New York to es­cape an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship was shot dead by her es­tranged lover in the West In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty in Brook­lyn.Sel­l­is Gon­za­les, 44, the moth­er of two, was killed in­stant­ly. The killer sent her daugh­ters on an er­rand to a near­by eatery be­fore he com­mit­ted the act.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day from Brook­lyn, Kirt Gon­za­les, the broth­er of the dead woman, said for women to stay in an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship on the premise that the man will change on­ly re­sults in more pain and even worse, death.He said his sis­ter was shot six times around 8.45 pm on Wednes­day.A re­port from the New York Dai­ly Mail said Sel­l­is' daugh­ters Khadi­ja, 15, and Alyssa, five, were giv­en $8 by the killer to get food at a near­by chick­en eatery.

When they got back some 15 min­utes lat­er, they found their moth­er mo­tion­less on the floor.She had been shot three times in the head and mid­sec­tion, po­lice sources told the news­pa­per.The Dai­ly Mail said po­lice iden­ti­fied Sal­lis' ex-boyfriend as Er­ic Mc­Cormick, 40, who re­mained at large yes­ter­day.Sel­l­is moved to Brownsville, Brook­lyn, when she was 31, as a re­sult of try­ing cir­cum­stances.

"My sis­ter's sec­ond ba­by's fa­ther used to al­so abuse her and when I found out I im­me­di­ate­ly told her to pack her bags and I sent a tick­et for her. I want­ed her out of that sit­u­a­tion. I want­ed her to have a bet­ter life and to get away from the abuse," Gon­za­les said.He nev­er thought his sis­ter would again end up in an­oth­er abu­sive re­la­tion­ship.Rel­a­tives, he said, tried "many times" to coax Sal­lis to end the re­la­tion­ship with the sus­pect but she did not take heed.

"I guess it was just a mat­ter of dat­ing the wrong guy. My mom and I spoke to my sis­ter many, many times," Gon­za­les said."She want­ed to let go but she couldn't. I think it's re­al­ly a mat­ter of women hav­ing re­spect for them­selves and to de­mand that re­spect from the per­son they are with." De­spite the abuse he nev­er thought his sis­ter would be killed."I mean she was shot six times. I thought it would be a black-and-blue eye but I nev­er thought she would be killed. I was not ex­pect­ing death," he added.

He said he in­tend­ed to ap­ply for le­gal cus­tody of his nieces.Urg­ing women to im­me­di­ate­ly "walk away" when they spot the first sign of abuse, Gon­za­les said the mes­sage must be spread that women must not be sub­ject­ed to any type of abuse, whether phys­i­cal, men­tal or emo­tion­al.