By Martin Mbugua And Don Singleton
Daily News Staff Writers With Maki Becker
December 17, 2000, Sunday Sports Final Edition
Copyright 2000 Daily News, L.P.
Daily News (New York)
December 17, 2000, Sunday Sports Final Edition
(NEW YORK ) -- As startled cops ducked for cover, the domestic violence counselor wanted for two midtown slayings turned his gun on himself yesterday as he sat alone on a stoop outside a Bronx police station. Daniel Sanders, the only suspect in a Friday ambush that left two lovers dead, pointed a .38-caliber pistol at his forehead, taunted cops to watch and then pulled the trigger, police said.
“Officers, I have a gun. I’m going to kill myself!” Sanders shouted to two detectives exiting the stationhouse about 1 a.m.
Detectives Jimmy Menton and Eileen Perez, who had just finished their shift, took cover and drew their weapons outside the 52nd Precinct stationhouse at 3016 Webster Ave., cops said.
Within seconds, Sanders, 51, collapsed, gravely injured.
The onetime Inwood resident remained in extremely critical condition early this morning at Jacobi Medical Center.
Cops had spent the 11 hours beforehand scouring the city for Sanders, who police say fatally shot his former girlfriend and her new love on W. 39th St. amid a crush of holiday shoppers.
“We knew who we were looking for,” said Sgt. Brian Burke, a Police Department spokesman. “It was just a matter of locating him.”
Witnesses said Doris Coleman, 40, pleaded with Sanders not to shoot, shouting, “No, no, no,” after he cornered her near a parking lot between Fifth and Sixth Aves. just after 2 p.m. Friday. She was shot three times - in the thigh, right cheek and forehead, police sources said.
The gunman had earlier turned his weapon on her new boyfriend, Larry Feaster, 41.
Police said Sanders had served four years in prison for a 1968 robbery conviction, was sentenced to a five- to six-year term for an attempted murder in 1974 and served additional time for robbery.
A neighbor at one of Sanders’ prior addresses, 400 E. 199th St., where he lived for three to four years, described him as a loner.
“He always kept to himself,” said Pat Ward, a teacher’s assistant who has an apartment near Sanders’ on the fifth floor of the building. “He was a very quiet man . . . not overly friendly, not the outgoing type.”
Witnesses told police Sanders had tried to shoot himself immediately after the midtown shootings, but either his gun malfunctioned or he changed his mind, sources said.
Sanders counseled domestic violence victims at the New York City Alternative Assistance Program at 350 Broadway in Manhattan, police said.
The victims - who friends said spent Thanksgiving together in Syracuse - were remembered yesterday as deeply in love.
A childhood friend of Feaster’s said the mailroom manager recently confided, “I think I love her.”
Feaster, who had been arrested several times on robbery charges and once in connection with the attempted murder of his wife, had been leading a clean, honest life the last eight years, said the friend, who wanted to be identified only as Ernie.
“Plain and simple, he was one of the good guys,” Ernie said. “One of the guys that should still be here.”