A man and a woman were gunned down execution style in the parking lot of a Bronx motel early Saturday morning, according to witnesses and police.
Police responded to a call of shots fired outside the Holiday Motel in Eastchester just after 3 a.m and found the bodies of 50-year-old Wayne Hamilton and a 38-year-old Tracy Bennett, each with multiple gunshot wounds, authorities said.
According to published reports the shooter pumped bullets into Hamilton as he tried flee and then turned his gun on Bennett who begged him for mercy.
“I looked out my window and saw a lady standing there,” Ricky Gugliotta, who was staying in a nearby room, told the Daily News. “She was begging him not to shoot her, but then he shot her twice and she went down.”
Police said Hamilton was from Milwaukee and Bennett was from Elmont, LI.
Joseph Kernizan, 42, has been identified as the suspected shooter police said.
According to police sources, Bennett and Kernizan have a child together and Bennett had an order of protection against him out of Nassau County.
Kernizan has been arrested several times, at least once for violating the order of protection, sources said.
He is described as being 5 feet 5 inches tall and 220 pounds.
Anyone with information about Kernizan's whereabouts is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers Website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or texting their tips to 274637(CRIMES) and entering TIP577.
