Loved ones of the Bronx first-grade teacher fatally shot by her boyfriend – who took his own life two days later – called the suspected killer an “evil coward” and declared that “God is gonna take care of him.”
Jessica Hoyle, 31 – who taught at the Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School – was fatally shot in the head during a fight with her boyfriend around 11 p.m. April 1 inside her home on Mickle Avenue in Williamsbridge, police said.
Her boyfriend, Shannon Graham, 35, died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound as cops closed in on him at an apartment building on Pratt Avenue in Eastchester Thursday afternoon, sources said.
“Whether he killed himself or not, whether we got justice or not… to me, is it really justice?” Hoyle’s best friend of 13 years, Tessa Attareb, told The Post at a Monday night vigil.
“Because she’s gone. Regardless of how it ends, she’s still gone. We can’t bring her back.”
But Attareb said she’s confident “God is gonna deal with him” and hopes he “burns in hell.”
“And that’s justice for me,” Attareb said. “Because you know, to be honest, after what he did, I don’t even think he deserves to be breathing.”
Attareb said she hasn’t slept since the murder – and has caught herself sending messages to her late friend on Instagram.
“I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it’ll give me some type of healing,” Attareb said.
Attareb, now a stay-at-home mom, said she and Hoyle first met in 2012 working retail at Marshall’s in Harlem and later attended Dutchess Community College together.
Their friendship grew as they worked together again at the Bronx charter school where Hoyle taught first grade — a job Attareb helped her land.
She said she never noticed any outright signs of domestic violence in Hoyle and Graham’s relationship.
“Like, I knew that they had issues, because people have issues — you know, simple stuff,” Attareb said. “Like maybe jealousy, insecurity, you know, things like that… unless she was keeping stuff, I don’t know. But not to the point where I thought he was gonna kill her.”
Hoyle was a selfless, positive person who cared for her students, her mother, and her sister, Attareb added.
As the family released dozens of blue balloons into the sky, Hoyle’s mother Lisa Cabassa appeared to murmur “amen,” before the crowd chanted “Long live Jessica!”
Cabassa described her late daughter as the family caretaker.
“I don’t know what to do, and I have to do better, because if not — I was in the hospital, and she took care of me,” the distraught mom said. “I have to be OK. I don’t know how.”
The night of the shooting, Cabassa, who uses a wheelchair and lives downstairs in the Mickle Avenue home, told police that Hoyle and Graham had been arguing all day before she heard a bang – prompting her to call 911, law enforcement sources said at the time.
Anti-domestic violence advocate Bishop Boyde Singletary, who helped organize the vigil, said that Hoyle was an “amazing, loving, giving” educator and person.
“She took care of her family, and she was a dynamic teacher who cared and loved her students,” Singletary told The Post. “She loved her job and she loved her friends.”
He described her suspected killer as an “evil coward.”
“This man took her life — you know, shot her in the head — and then a couple of days later committed suicide, took his own self out.”
Singletary railed against what he described as spiraling gun violence in the city, especially against women.
“There are too many women that we’re losing — good people that we’re losing — to domestic violence because of gun violence,” he said.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788.