14-year-old arrested in fatal stabbing of ‘brilliant' teen at NYC McDonald's: Our family is ‘destroyed'
A 14-year-old has been arrested in the fatal stabbing of a young teen during a wild fight at a Queens McDonald's – which has left the victim's family 'destroyed,' according to his family and police.
Julian Corniell died at Weill Cornell Medical Center from multiple stab wounds to the abdomen after the 3:30 p.m. knifing Friday at the fast-food joint near 38th Street and Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside, police said.
'I feel very destroyed. I don't know what to do. I am a single mother of four kids. Julian was my only boy. He was only 14,' his mother, Julia Verona, told The Post Saturday. 'All my kids are very destroyed with this news.'
Verona, 36, called her son 'brilliant' and 'a very fun little boy,' who loved to play video games and soccer.
He 'loved his family' and was 'doing good in school' as a freshman at Hillcrest High School – although he had a history of being bullied, which made him 'afraid of going out alone,' she said.
'Before Hillcrest, my son got attacked in middle school in Jackson Heights. Last year in January … he got attacked by ten kids and he went to the hospital,' Verona said.
Now, the boy is dead after being stabbed during a fight that broke out among a large group of teenagers in the parking lot of the McDonald's, police said.
The suspect, who has not been publicly identified, was charged with first-degree gang assault, cops said.
Cops don't think Corniell and the baby-faced perp knew each other, but are still investigating their relationship, according to the NYPD.
The motive and whether either the suspect or victim are gang affiliated also remain under investigation, police said.
Verona insisted, 'my son is not a street kid' and usually came straight home from school to take care of his younger siblings.
On the morning of his murder, Verona said Corniell asked her for money as he left home at around 8:30 a.m. to buy something for his 'little girlfriend' for Valentine's Day – but she received a call from Hillcrest later that afternoon informing her he never showed up to school.
Shortly afterward, as Verona was preparing love-themed holiday baskets for her four children, she received the shocking news.
'I'm very sad that this happened to him in that way and I was not able to help it,' she said while choking back tears.
Verona doesn't know who the perps could be – or why her son was in Sunnyside.
'I don't know how they look like, I don't know their names, I don't know where those kids are coming from. I don't know, because we live in Jamaica, which is very far from Sunnyside,' she said. 'I don't know how my son ended up over there.'
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