Queens woman feared boyfriend now wanted for killing her, uncle wounded in shooting says

The uncle of a Queens woman police say was gunned down by her boyfriend witnessed her horrific final moments — and was shot and wounded himself when he intervened.

“I’m going to kill her now,” the on-the-loose shooter, identified by police as 33-year-old Kevin Rodriguez, muttered moments before he fired a bullet into the head of Jennifer “Tatiana” Navarrete, 32, her uncle who survived the shooting told the Daily News.

The doomed woman had been trying to get out from under her abusive boyfriend’s thumb but he was relentless, “harassing her, threatening her, hitting her, stalking her, hacking her social media and her phone,” said her older half-brother, Alejandro Calderon Quevedo, who lives in her native Colombia.

On Dec. 14, as the victim was picking up dinner her boyfriend got into her car, hit her and threatened her with a gun, telling her he’d kill her, the half-brother says he was told by the victim.

Two days later, he allegedly made good on that threat.

In her final moments, Tatiana wished her uncle goodnight in the home they shared on 14th Road near 119th St. in College Point.

“She came in, already in her pajamas, all set,” the uncle, Arturo Navarrete, said in Spanish via text message. “I asked if she wanted me to make her some [tea], but she said, ‘No, I have to wake up early. See you tomorrow.’”

Minutes later, the victim’s boyfriend suddenly appeared, trying to kick down her bedroom door about 1:15 a.m. Dec. 16.

“He kicked it two, three, four, five, six times,” said Arturo. “I went toward her room and just as I reached her door he managed to force it open and entered.”

The uncle took a few steps toward the bedroom and that’s when he heard Rodriguez say “I’m going to kill her now,” he said.

“When I got there I heard the gunshot,” he said. “I saw him looking at her and then I looked at my niece. She was sitting on the bed in an upright position.”

As Tatiana sat mortally wounded on the bed, bleeding from a bullet to her head, Rodriguez turned toward him, Arturo said..

“I told him, ‘You already killed her,’ hoping to scare him into running away or checking if she was still alive,” the uncle said.

“But as soon as I said the words, ‘You already killed her,’ he pointed the gun at me. I instinctively raised my arm and the first shot hit my left arm, deflecting the bullet, but it still entered higher up and traveled toward my neck.”

“My arm was shattered,” he added. “It was nearly destroyed.”

Tatiana’s 49-year-old uncle made it on his own to Flushing Hospital and was treated for gunshot wounds to his arm and back. Tatiana, shot in the head, died at the scene.

Police are now looking for Rodriguez, 33, and said that when he is found he will be charged with murdering Tatiana and with wounding her uncle. Rodriguez’s photo was released by the NYPD last week, with police asking for public’s help locating him.

“This man deserves to be in jail. He can hurt or even kill more women. We can’t do much from Colombia. We don’t have a visa to travel and try to get justice,” the victim’s distraught half-brother told The News. “This man not only killed my sister but he changed the life of an entire family. Everything fell apart.”

The youngest of three siblings, Tatiana grew up in Bogotá but wanted to make a name for herself elsewhere, her half-brother said.

“She was so smart and clever,” Quevedo said. “She got an industrial engineer degree and she had a master’s degree in finance, both of them in Colombia.”

At first she moved to Mexico but when she couldn’t find a job there she returned home. Then about four years ago she fled the violence in Colombia, seeking a refugee visa so she could chase the American dream, her half-brother said.

She came to New York in November 2021 and met Rodriguez a couple of weeks later. They began a relationship but her family recognized him as someone who was taking advantage of her vulnerabilities, Quevedo said.

“We advised her a lot to stay away from that man, until she finally listened to us,” he said. “She decides to break up their relationship because she realizes that he is a bad man, a toxic, jealous and possessive person and he is hurting her a lot.”

After she tried to leave is when the harassment and stalking began in earnest, he said.

“She was here (in Colombia) a few weeks before that happened to her and she was telling us that, ‘He is always threatening me… He says he’s going to kill me,’” he said. “I told her, ‘You need to leave because believe it or not he can actually kill you.’ She wanted to get away but it’s just hard.”

Tatiana told a cousin the day before the bloodshed that she was finally ready to take legal action against her boyfriend.

“She was just talking about how she was sad and she wanted to get a restraining order,” said the 24-year-old cousin. “She was murdered the day after.”

Tatiana was working several jobs, including at a Starbucks and caring for a boy with autism.

“She had dreams of being a nurse,” the cousin said. “She had so many dreams. She came here to accomplish all her dreams.”

“She really loved taking care of people. She was always thinking of others. She was beautiful,” she added. “She was taking care of her mother, taking care of her whole family back in Colombia. It’s really hard.”

Tatiana’s body was taken back to Colombia, where her family had a funeral for her..

“Her family was just calling us saying, ‘How is it she’s going to return to her country dead?’” the cousin said. “Her mom was screaming. She talks to her pictures. Everyone who knew her is so devastated. We couldn’t even believe it.”

The cousin said the family won’t rest until the killer is caught.

“He would always tell her he was going to kill her,” she said. “He deserves to rot in jail for taking her life.”