Saturday, August 22, 2009

11-year-old sister witness as Brooklyn college student dies from bullet wound to back

From the Daily News by Edgar Sandoval, Barry Paddock and Jonathan Lemire:

The murder of a Brooklyn college student just steps from his home has left his family haunted by his last moments and cops hunting for a motive.

Patrick Nicolas, a junior at Kingsborough Community College who also worked a part-time job to help provide for his sisters, was shot in the back Wednesday night and collapsed on the sidewalk.

"It broke my heart," said sister Eureka Ravilus, who ran outside, kneeled next to her 20-year-old brother and clutched his hand.

"Hang in there," Ravilus, 23, recalled saying as Nicolas' life slipped away.

"I told him, 'I love you,' and he heard me," she said. "I know he heard me."

As paramedics furiously worked on Nicolas, described by relatives as a "giant teddy bear," his 11-year-old sister tried to push through a crowd of cops to get one last look at her brother.

"He was just laying on the floor, [and] all I could see was his feet and him moving," said Sharina Clay. "I can't really imagine my brother gone."

Nicolas was taken to Kings County Hospital but died just minutes after the 9:50 p.m. shooting, police said.

His mother, Elaine Ravilus, collapsed in grief after learning of her son's death.

"I don't know why God took him away," said Elaine Ravilus, who was briefly hospitalized for shock.

Investigators were not certain what prompted the shooting on Lenox Road in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, but Nicolas' family insisted he stayed out of trouble.

"We did not even know where the bullet came from," said Eureka Ravilus, who said her brother's final act was to raise his hands in an attempt to prevent her from seeing him bleed to death.

"He did not want me to see him like that," she said quietly.

To help pay his family's bills, Nicolas worked part-time at a Gap store at the Kings Plaza mall and was coming home from a shift when he was shot, relatives said.

A business and accounting major, Nicolas was a standout football player at Lafayette High School who stood 6-foot-4 and weighed 250 pounds. He rapped under the stage name "Pulla Pat" but never dabbled in drugs or gangs, relatives said.

"He did not have any problems with anyone," said Elaine Ravilus, 56, as she caressed a photo of her slain son. "He looked like Shaquille O'Neal, my prince."

"He doesn't really have any enemies," Sharina said. "I thought it was a mistake because he's not really a person who would start trouble."

Nicolas did not appear to have a prior arrest record, police sources said.

The tight-knit Haitian family gathered to grieve at their Clarkson Ave. home late Thursday. No arrests have been made.

esandoval@nydailynews.com

With Jamie Locher

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