Who suffers most from street thugs?

Grandma dies after stranger cold-cocks her outside store

The church-going granny who was cold-cocked by an ex-con as he fled a Queens deli in October has died, police said.

Eve Gentillon, 69, a retired home health aide, died Friday, about four months after the senseless attack, which was caught on surveillance video, cops said late Tuesday.

The case has now been reclassified as a homicide.

Modal Trigger

Eve Gentillon

Gentillon needed emergency surgery after suffering a brain aneurysm from the random Oct. 15 morning attack by 29-year-old career criminal Richard “Kwasi” Springer outside of the Sutphin King Deli on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica.

The grandmother of two struggled to recover ever since and was in and out of rehabilitation centers before dying at Queens Hospital, her devastated daughter Marie Gentillon, 37, said Wednesday.

“This incident crippled her to the last minute,” said Marie who was at her mother’s bedside until the end. “I don’t think it was her time to go. Unfortunately he did this to her.”

She said thought her mother was going to pull through and then she caught pneumonia, worsening her health.

“When she had her eyes open, she always looked like she was in a daze,” Marie said. When you said “Eve,” she would open her eyes. She would often cry too.”

The Medical Examiner ruled Gentillon’s cause of death as traumatic brain injury caused by blunt force trauma.
Marie said that she will never be the same.

“My mom was part of my body. He definitely handicapped me,” said Marie, referring to Springer who authorities say is currently in an upstate New York psych ward called Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center.

Springer was nabbed nearly two weeks after the assault, which he committed after storming out of the deli with a stolen can of beer.

He had been charged with first-degree robbery and second-degree assault, and he now faces upgraded charges once the case is put before a grand jury, authorities said.

“He needs to stay in prison,” said Marie.

Shocking surveillance footage of the attack shows the suspect – who has 10 prior arrests on his record dating back to 2003 – clocking woman in the face with a closed fist, knocking Gentillon out cold.

Gentillon was on her way to meet up with other church congregants when she was assaulted.

Additional reporting by Daniel Prendergast