On the night of Sunday, November 23, 2025, Randy Blanche, a 24-year-old man from the Bronx, was shot multiple times in the head outside an apartment building in the Morris Heights section of the borough. Police from the NYPD’s 46th Precinct responded around 8 p.m. to a 911 call reporting an assault in progress at 160 West 174th Street, near the Sedgwick Houses. Officers arrived to find Blanche on the sidewalk, unconscious and unresponsive, with several gunshot wounds to his head.
Emergency medical personnel rushed him to BronxCare Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators cordoned off the block and collected evidence while neighbors described hearing shouting, followed by a rapid series of gunshots. Surveillance video captured portions of the confrontation, and footage from the scene showed multiple women being handcuffed and taken into police vehicles as potential witnesses or people of interest. Early reports indicated that several individuals were in custody as detectives worked to determine who had fired the shots and what led up to the violence, but at first no formal arrests were publicly announced and police did not release a description of the shooter.
Within two days, the investigation shifted sharply when NYPD officers arrested 59-year-old Bronx resident Denise Aponte and charged her with murder, manslaughter and criminal weapons possession in connection with Blanche’s killing. According to police and court documents, Aponte lives on Popham Avenue, directly across from the crime scene, while Blanche lived more than a mile away in the Tremont area, and detectives have been examining whether the two knew each other before the shooting. A criminal complaint later clarified that prosecutors do not allege Aponte herself pulled the trigger; instead, they say she was present at the scene and armed, and that another individual actually fired the fatal shots.
Prosecutors have since outlined a more detailed narrative involving a domestic dispute that escalated into deadly gunfire. According to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, Aponte was outside with her daughters when they became embroiled in an argument with a group of five other people near the Sedgwick Houses. As shoving and tensions increased, investigators say Aponte phoned her husband, Marcos Rodriguez, telling him to come downstairs and, according to the complaint, urging him to “bring that,” interpreted by prosecutors as a reference to a firearm. Witness accounts and video evidence cited by authorities indicate that when Rodriguez arrived, Blanche was attempting to intervene in the dispute and break up the fight. Prosecutors say Rodriguez then shot Blanche in the head three times in front of the West 174th Street building before fleeing with Aponte.
Aponte was arrested at her apartment the following morning and is being held on the homicide and weapons charges, with prosecutors indicating she faces a potential sentence of 25 years to life if convicted. Her attorney has publicly disputed the prosecution’s interpretation of the crucial phone call, arguing that the complaint’s quoted language does not explicitly mention a weapon and insisting that the state is overreaching in its theory that she orchestrated the killing. As of the latest reporting, police are still searching for Rodriguez, who is believed to be the gunman, and authorities have not announced additional formal charges for others who were detained at the scene.
Blanche’s death has resonated deeply in the neighborhood and within his family. His mother, Shonta Johnson, told reporters she was “lost for words,” saying simply, “She took him from me,” in reference to Aponte, and declining to elaborate on why her son had been at that specific location when the dispute erupted. Local coverage has noted that Blanche is at least the fourth person to die from gun violence in the 46th Precinct this year, even as shootings there have dropped significantly compared with the previous year, underscoring the way a single killing can reawaken community fear despite broader statistical improvements.
