Hofstra student killed, A Hofstra University student was shot dead Friday when an armed intruder burst into her home and held several students hostage until he was killed in a hail of police bullets.
Andrea Rebello, 21, was shot to death around 2:30 a.m. in the Long Island house where she lived with her identical twin Jessica — who emerged unscathed from the carnage, cops said.
The body of the suspect involved in a fatal shooting and break-in that occurred early Friday morning at an off-campus house near Hofstra University is removed from the house in Uniondale, N.Y.
Jessica Rebello, Andrea’s best friend and constant companion, was held hostage with her sister by an armed bandit until Nassau County police arrived and the gunfire started.
The twins’ father, after reuniting Friday with his surviving daughter, wept over his loss.High school yearbook photo of Andrea Rebello, a student at Hofstra University who was killed in her Uniondale, N.Y. home.
“It’s my daughter, my baby daughter,” a distraught Fernando Rebello told the Journal-News from the family’s Tarrytown home. “She was so beautiful. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do.”
Police brass acknowledged that officers opened fire in the house, but couldn’t confirm who fired the bullets that killed the popular college student and the unidentified attacker.
Nella and Fernando Rebello, parents of Andrea Rebello, arrive at the Nassau County Medical Examiners Office.
Asked if the suspect fired his weapon, Capece said authorities wouldn’t comment “until we get more info.”
Jessica Rebello had transferred to the Long Island college because she missed her look-alike sibling. As investigators scoured the crime scene, their cars remained parked in the driveway — matching white Acuras.
People gather together in a Hofstra University parking lot, located near the scene of a fatal shooting.
“There’s just no words,” said Andrea’s devastated godmother several hours later outside the family home. “It’s just too tragic to talk.”
Andrea died about 10 minutes after the home invader burst through the front door at 213 California Ave. in Uniondale. He took the diminutive twins hostage along with Jessica’s boyfriend and a third woman, cops said.
Students grieve for slain Hofstra University junior Andrea Rebello in a parking lot on the school's campus Friday.
Neighbor Marcel Crandon, 43, who lives two doors down, said he heard a woman’s voice pleading for her life before four rapid gunshots.
To hear someone’s last scream of their life is something that you’re not going to forget,” he said. “It’s a scene that you don’t want to think about.”
All four people in the house were students at Hofstra, where Friday was the last day of exams.
The Rebello twins were both in their junior year, and shared the off-campus house with several of Andrea’s sorority sisters.
The assailant apparently ordered the third woman to go to a nearby ATM and make a cash withdrawal while he held her friends at gunpoint.
But she instead walked outside and dialed 911 to report the break-in and hostage situation, police said.
The terrified caller told the dispatcher the intruder was holding several hostages — and pressing a silver handgun against her friend’s head in a second-floor bedroom.
A neighbor reported hearing screams echoing from the rental property shortly before the first gunshots.
We heard the yelling and then five loud bangs,” said Victoria Dehel, 20, who lives five houses away. “It sounded like a college girl …. It sounded like she was fighting for her life.”
Dehel said a dozen police cars descended on the house around the same time as the terrifying scream. Cops ordered her and her boyfriend back inside their home when they tried to come outside. When the gunshots stopped, the gunman was dead along with the innocent student.
Katherine Parker, 27, who lives next-door, said she saw cops pouring through the back door of the house in the middle of the night. After the shots, I heard people yelling,” said the law student. “It was alarming.”
The twins had finished their exams earlier in the week and planned to stick around campus until after Sunday’s graduation, according to a friend.
Four people were in a house on California Ave. in Uniondale, L.I. when a man in a ski mask forced his way in about 2:30 a.m., Nassau police said.
Alexandra Berman, 21, said the twins and the boyfriend had just returned home shortly before the break-in. Berman said she was studying with the student dispatched to the ATM until about 2 a.m.
“I texted her (Friday) and said, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe this, I hope you’re OK,’ ” Berman said. “She texted back, ‘Thank you.’ ”
The killings rocked the Long Island campus just two days before graduation.
“A young member of the Hofstra family has been taken from us in a senseless act of violence,” Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz said in statement.
“Our hearts and minds and our thoughts and prayers are with her family, her friends and her classmates.”
The university announced its graduation ceremonies would proceed as scheduled, and ordered all flags on campus flown at half-staff.
Students shocked to hear about the violent death of the sorority sister.
“It’s stunning,” said one student. “I got out of my exam this morning, and my friend who lives nearby said he heard there was a shooting.”
Graduate student Bo Chen, 25, said he walked past the two-story suburban home every morning on his way to the library.
“This is a tragedy,” he said.
The residence sits alongside the Hofstra campus, and opposite the California Ave. Elementary School. Yellow crime scene tape blocked off the streets around the shooting scene.
The grammar school was shut down Friday as investigators flooded the crime scene. In the Rebello family’s neighborhood, residents expressed sympathy for the tightly knit Portuguese-American clan.
“They really did make a lot of sacrifices to do a lot for those kids,” said neighbor Jack Phelan. “They’re never going to get over this.”