Mother shot and killed on her porch in Queens

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Queens mother has died and her cousin has been injured after an early morning shooting.

Authorities say the woman was shot around 5:30 a.m. Sunday at her home on 135th Street.

She was pronounced dead at the scene and has been identified as 39-year-old Sandra Bajnath.

It was a sudden act of violence that left a young mother dead in a hail of bullets and her cousin fighting for his life. Bajnath was gunned down on her front porch in South Ozone Park.

Police say the shooting stemmed from an earlier argument at a neighborhood bar, a dispute that carried over when the people Bajnath and her cousin had been fighting with followed them home.

"They were good people, I didn't know they had problems with anybody," said a neighbor, Ryan Haripersad. "They lived their life normally, like how everybody did."

There was no comment today from the owner of the Food Hut, the bar where bajnath had been with her 26-year old cousin, a karate teacher in the neighborhood.

Bajnath was on maternity leave as a customer service rep for Verizon. she was married to her high school sweetheart who not injured in the shooting.

Close friend Annie Shiwram couldn't believe the news this morning. "And then it hit me," she said. "Oh my God, Sandra, of all people. That's all I could think about: why Sandra?."

Over two dozen shell cases littered 135th Street, a crime scene that took hours to process.

The hunt is on now for the people who murdered the mother of two boys in cold blood. No arrests have been made.

Dozens of the victim's neighbors and friends lit candles in front of her home, the same place the mother of two was gunned down.

As they mourned late Sunday night police impounded a silver Cadillac. Neighbors says it's connected to the case.

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