A 57-year-old woman was shot dead by two crooks robbing her husband of his cell phone after following him back to the couple’s Lower East Side apartment, police said Tuesday.

The husband was followed into his apartment building on Market St. near Madison St. by the pair of muggers, both wearing ski masks, and onto the elevator about 11 p.m. Monday, cops said.

The crooks were trying to rob him when the elevator stopped on the eighth floor, where he lives.

As the husband struggled with the robbers his wife, Ying Zhu Liu, stepped out of the couple’s apartment and was shot in the right cheek by one of the muggers. She died at the scene. Another man at the scene, believed to be the couple’s son, was not hurt.

A single shell casing was recovered in the stairwell but the killer crooks ran off with the husband’s cell phone and have not been caught, police said,

One suspect was wearing a half-red half-black hoodie, dark sweatpants with a white stripe down the side and a ski mask, police said. The other was wearing a black hoodie, black pants, black-and-white sneakers and a black ski mask.

Originally Published: September 10, 2024 at 7:54 a.m.