NEW YORK — When a Bronx man was shot to death by his upstairs neighbor over a long-simmering noise dispute, it was the mortally wounded man’s wife, a 911 dispatcher, who relayed the information to her supervisor — without realizing who the victim was.
“The girl who was dispatching, she said, ‘Can you give the supervisor this job?’ ” Junita Reed-St. Clair, who was finishing her shift just as her 39-year-old husband, Dillon St. Clair, was killed in a quarrel with their neighbor, explained to the Daily News.
“So I gave the number of the job, not knowing that it was my husband. I spoke to [my husband] maybe an hour or two before.”
During the couple’s final phone call, Reed-St. Clair, 32, made plans to pick up food for the family on her way home from work. But before she got home, she got a call from cops.
“They said there was an altercation,” she said. “I was thinking it was nothing serious, but when I got there I saw the crime scene. I didn’t know what to think.”
She came home to the aftermath of the long-running dispute between her husband and suspected shooter Matthew Rushie, 46, who turned himself in to police at the 49th Precinct stationhouse accompanied by a lawyer after six days on the run.
Cops charged Rushie with murder, manslaughter and possession of a loaded gun. He is being held without bail at Rikers Island and is due back in Bronx Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Rushie is accused of shooting St. Clair in the chest outside the multifamily home their families shared on Morgan Ave. near Arnow Ave. in Pelham Gardens about 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 17.
St. Clair was rushed by medics to Jacobi Medical Center, but he could not be saved.
Rushie’s mother is the building’s landlord, and Rushie was living there with her as her caretaker, Reed-St. Clair said. Rushie first complained about noise from St. Clair’s apartment several months ago, Reed-St. Clair said.
“We have four boys and you know, they’re boys,” she said. “I guess his mother is accustomed to certain sleep patterns. She sleeps during the day and is up at night.”
Reed-St. Clair said Rushie angrily buzzed her family’s bell multiple times that day while her husband was out at the store.
Reed-St. Clair answered the door.
“He said, ‘My mom is asleep,’ ” she said. “I said, ‘My apologies.’ ”
“But that’s not the way you address it,” she said of Rushie’s aggressiveness.
When her husband came back, Reed-St. Clair told him what had happened and he and Rushie had words.
“There was a verbal dispute, nothing serious,” she said. “From then on there’s going to be some type of hostility.”
Rushie was conditionally released by parole in March 2002 after serving 19 months for a weapon conviction. He was also arrested for robbery in 1993, for rape in 2003, and, more recently, for a stabbing, cops said.
St. Clair’s sons — ages 10 and 7 and 9-year-old twins — were in the home when their father was shot just outside.
“It was like a little piece of us is gone,” she said. “They have an understanding of life and death. They keep questioning about it.”
St. Clair also had a daughter from a previous relationship.
Reed-St. Clair described her husband as a stay-at-home dad who studied astrology and metaphysics and had taken Federal Emergency Management Agency courses.
“He was interested in assisting people,” she said.
The family was making plans to leave the city before St. Clair was killed. Reed-St. Clair said she doesn’t know what they’re going to do now.
She has taken little comfort in Rushie’s surrender.
“I don’t want to say I want to see him dead or locked up forever,” Reed-St. Clair said. “That’s not going to bring my husband back. I believe God does do things to test your faith. I’m going to take this as a test of faith.”
“He was a great person,” she said of her husband. “I just want people to take this as a lesson and not let anger, hate take over. Just let it go. You live longer when you love and be positive.”
