Shooter convicted in home invasion murder of South Ozone Park father

Photo by Jimmy Chan from Pexels.

By Jonathan Sperling

A Brooklyn man who shot and killed a South Ozone Park father as he helped his five-year-old daughter get dressed for school in 2016 was convicted by a Queens jury.

Freddie Salgado, 41, and an unidentified suspect were attempting a home invasion when they entered Frankie Nieves’ Peconic Street house in South Ozone Park on January 11, 2016 and fatally shot him in the chest. Salgado faces up to 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced by Justice Richard Buchter on May 17.

“The victim in this case was helping his five-year-old daughter dress for school when the defendant and another individual barged in, fought with the victim’s brother and then shot the 50-year-old father once in the chest,” said Chief Assistant District Attorney John Ryan in a statement. “This kind of lawless gun violence is reprehensible. One man was killed and the child could have easily become a victim of this ruthless act of depravity.

Salgado, of 54th Street in Sunset Park, and the other defendant, fought with Nieves’ brother Edgar on the ground floor. The two men were armed with a handgun and a stun gun, according to prosecutors.

Edgar managed to escape the house through the front door but heard gunfire inside the home behind him. He eventually learned that Frankie had been shot once in the chest at close range.

Frankie was taken to a nearby hospital where he later died.

Investigators managed to capture Salgado because DNA extracted from a red hat left at the scene matched Salgado’s DNA profile, which was on file in the New York State DNA Databank.

Salgado initially fled New York City and was apprehended in Miami a week after the murder in the same BMW used as a getaway car in the crime.

Salgado’s alleged accomplice has not yet been apprehended.