In the quiet town of Haverstraw, New York, the life of Noe Hamer, a 42-year-old male of Mexican heritage, was brought to a tragic and abrupt end on February 6, 2020. A respected funeral director and the General Manager of T.J. McGowan Sons Funeral Home, Hamer was fatally shot in the parking lot of his workplace. His death was not a random act of violence but a calculated attack by a recently terminated employee.
The man responsible for this senseless act was Gerard F.
O'Sullivan, a 60-year-old New City resident who had been fired by Hamer earlier that same day. In an act of vengeance, O'Sullivan waited for Hamer in the funeral home's parking lot. As Hamer arrived in his car, O'Sullivan opened fire, shooting him multiple times. The brutal attack was witnessed by another individual who, in an attempt to intervene, fired his own licensed handgun and struck O'Sullivan in the shoulder.
When Haverstraw police arrived at the scene, they found an armed O'Sullivan who refused to comply with their commands to drop his weapon. Officers were forced to use a Taser to subdue and apprehend him. Hamer was pronounced dead at the scene. O'Sullivan was taken into custody and subsequently arraigned from his hospital room.
Gerard F. O'Sullivan was charged with a litany of crimes, including second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing a police officer, unlawful imprisonment, and resisting arrest. In November 2020, he pleaded guilty to all charges against him. The following March, a judge sentenced O'Sullivan to 18 years to life in prison for what the Rockland County District Attorney described as a 'cold-blooded assassination.'
