It was a fate she could not predict.
The 51-year-old Queens woman shot dead in her own home was a tarot card reader – and cops believe she was killed by a disgruntled customer who thought the ‘witch’ had cursed him, sources said at the Post on Thursday.
Giuseppe Canzani, 41, allegedly admitted to shooting Anna Torres after she opened the door to her home in Ozone Park around 2.30pm on Wednesday “because she was a witch”, sources say.
Canzani believed the seer – who did fortune and tarot card readings from her home – cast a spell on him and cursed him, a source said.
“Yeah, that’s the woman I shot,” Canzani reportedly told detectives at the 106th Precinct Police Station about an hour after the fatal shooting at the 109th Avenue home. “They tried to kill me.”
“If I told you what happened to me, you wouldn’t believe it,” he reportedly said. “Not for nothing, I’m supposed to be already dead, that’s all I know. This woman, you will never understand. You would think I was crazy.
Torres, the mother of an NYPD cop, had gotten into a huge fight with a client known as “Joey” some time before the fatal confrontation, her daughter told investigators.
David Aguilar, the distraught husband of the slain woman, said he learned of Torres’ death on the news.
“I was at work and saw it on the news,” he told reporters as he drove to the city morgue on Thursday. “I said, ‘Wait. It looks like my house. It was.
“He shattered my world,” he added with tears in his eyes. “I’ve never seen him before. I wish I could reach it now, but I can’t.
The heartbroken husband said his late wife ‘didn’t have bad bones in her body’.
“She was the best wife, the best mother,” he said, bursting into tears. “I want to know why he did this. I am lost without her.
Police said two family members were inside the home at the time of the shooting – but neither was his cop son, sources said.
Two shots were fired, at least one of which hit Torres in the head, sources said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Just looking out the window I heard the gunshots and after that you hear the screams,” neighbor Michael Persaud told the Post. “Right after you hear the pop, pop, pop, you hear the screams. It was muffled. »
Persaud said another woman came out of the house yelling at the police.
Chilling surveillance video shows the shooter fleeing in a black Chevy Traverse after the shooting, NYPD Deputy Chief Jerry O’Sullivan said at a press briefing Wednesday night.
Canzani, who is married and lives in Howard Beach, went to the 106th Precinct Police Station about an hour later, placed a .45 caliber handgun on the sidewalk and surrendered to police, sources said.
Two officers standing outside arrested him without incident, O’Sullivan told reporters during the briefing.
Canzani was questioned by detectives and allegedly made a haunting confession before being charged with murder and criminal possession of a loaded weapon.
“I killed her because she was a witch,” he allegedly told cops.
Police said he had no criminal record.
The hulking accused killer said nothing as he was escorted out of the compound in a police cruiser on Thursday afternoon and driven to court for his arraignment, which is expected to take place later that evening.
Cops acknowledged that Canzani and Torres knew each other “to some extent,” but said the relationship did not appear to have been romantic.
The incident was the first fatal shooting in the 106th Ward this year.
Last year, three other people were shot and killed within the compound, police said.
Residents of the close-knit neighborhood were stunned by the violence – and a neighbor said Canzani may have threatened the family weeks ago.
Vick, who declined to give his last name, said he and others had seen the alleged gunman and his car before.
“I heard that the family was threatened a few weeks ago by this guy, that he was going to shoot someone in the house, and the guy finally did something. I can’t say to what it was useful, I do not have this information.
Neighbors say the family was friendly and known for hosting barbecues.
“As far as divination goes, I know she used to read maps,” Torres’ neighbor Anthony Archibald said. “But I didn’t know if she was doing it for people. She never asked me to do it.
“She’s a very calm woman,” he said. “She is really nice to everyone in this neighborhood. Besides, who wants to shoot a policeman’s mother? It just doesn’t make sense.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Tina Moore