Cops are asking the public’s help tracking down a violent ex-con suspected of stabbing a Brooklyn bodega worker to death for refusing to sell him a few loose cigarettes, police said.
Cops released a mugshot of suspect Oneil Millise Wednesday as they pressed their search for him.
Millise, 42, allegedly stabbed 33-year-old Diego Rodrigo Sandoval Nava inside the deli on Hegeman Ave. at Van Siclen Ave. in East New York about 3 p.m. Aug. 1 after the victim refused to sell him some loosies — individual cigarettes illegally sold from an open pack, police said.
“(The stabber) asked the cashier for a cigarette,” a witness told the Daily News. “The cashier wasn’t paying him any attention. So the customer got upset even more and the (stabber) told him pretty much he was gonna come back behind the register and take the cigarettes. And the cashier pretty much said, ‘Well, do it,’ and that kind of provoked them even more.”
The killer was asked to leave the store but he returned a short time later, stormed the counter and stabbed Sandoval Nava several times in the torso.
He then ran off, leaving the victim on the floor holding his bloody side, the witness recalled. Medics rushed Sandoval Nava to Brookdale University Hospital, where he died.
Millise has been arrested 24 times for several violent felonies including robbery and assault, a police source said.
In 2014 he was arrested on murder charges in Flatbush, Brooklyn, the source said. The outcome of that case was not immediately clear Wednesday.
A friend of Sandoval Nava said the victim would give away free sandwiches to people in need.
“He would help people outside, making sure they’re OK, feeding them,” said the friend, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, Andy. “He leaves behind a teenage daughter back in Mexico.”
Anyone with information about Millise’s whereabouts is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
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