Bed-Stuy Moms' Killers Convicted Of Murder, Prosecutors Say

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — Two men were convicted Monday of shooting two young mothers dead in a Bed-Stuy courtyard in 2017, prosecutors said. Neither woman was an intended target.

Anthony Alexander, 19, and Nazir Saunders, 22, were convicted of murder two years after they shot into a crowd people — fatally wounding Chynna Battle, 21, and Shaqwanda Staley, 29 — at a barbecue on Gates and Stuyvesant avenues, said prosecutors.

Alexander, of Bed-Stuy, and Saunders, of Harlem, fired 10 bullets, missed their targets and shot Battle, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, in the head, and Staley, the mother of a 9-year-old daughter, in the back, said prosecutors.

Both men fled and where later arrested in South Carolina on Oct. 31, 2017, prosecutors said.

The day after the shooting, Battle's step-mother told Patch she had "no forgiveness in her heart" for the men who killed a woman she thought of as her daughter.

Hundreds of people who gathered to mourn Battle at a Brooklyn funeral remembered her as a dedicated mom and "the friend you wanted to have."

The two men could face from 50 years to life in prison when sentenced in Brooklyn Criminal Court on June 10, said prosecutors.

“Two innocent women, each of them a young mother, died when these defendants callously opened fire on a crowd that was peacefully gathered in a courtyard on a summer evening," said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Adams.

"The victims’ daughters will now grow up without the love and support of their mothers."