The wife of a man gunned down during a botched early morning robbery outside a South Philadelphia bakery says her husband was taken before she could say goodbye one last time.
"The reality is that my husband will never walk through that door. Our youngest son will never know his father," Dionica Hernandez said.
Jose Gabino-Aparicio, Hernandez's husband, was shot and killed around 4 a.m. on Thursday outside his brother-in-law's bakery at 8th and Watkins Streets, according to police.
Hernandez says the 22-year-old was walking home from work with a friend when they stopped at the bakery to get bread for the family's breakfast.
"He would always go by there to get us some bread so we would have enough food to eat," she told NBC10's Nefertiti Jaquez in Spanish.
As they left, the men were confronted by a man on a bike who demanded Gabino-Aparicio's backpack and cell phone.
The men got into a struggle and Gabino-Aparicio was shot three times in the back, according to police.
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He was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Hernandez says she rushed to be at her husband's side, but didn't make it there before he died.
Following the shooting, the suspect left the bike he was riding on. Detectives say they hope to pull DNA from the bike that could lead them to the killer.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
