Central Islip mom loses second son to gunfire

More than two decades ago, Lucille Johnson lost her eldest son to gunfire in Central Islip.

Just after midnight Thursday, her youngest son suffered the same fate in the same neighborhood.

The same homicide squad that solved Richard Johnson's 1987 slaying is trying to figure out who shot Brian Hobbs, 25, as he walked to a friend's house.

"I think it hit me harder with the first one 'cause I was so much younger. I'm older now," Johnson, 66, said, Hobbs' belongings nearby in a plastic bag police had given her.

"Brian was 2 years old when his older brother got killed. I was destroyed," Johnson said. "My hair just turned white overnight." In Thursday's slaying, detectives believe Hobbs left their home alone around midnight to walk to a friend's home about two blocks away, homicide squad Det. Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky said.

"When he got about two-thirds of the way there, he gets shot," Pelkofsky said. Several shots were fired, and Hobbs was wounded at least once in the right side of his chest. He ran a short distance and collapsed outside a home on Cherry Street, Pelkofsky said.

After she heard about the shooting, Lucille Johnson walked to the scene and knew that her son was the victim after seeing his brown slippers in the street.

"That's how he was identified, by his house slippers," she said. "Isn't that terrible?"

He was pronounced dead at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore.

He had lived with his mother for many years and worked as a material handler and packager in Suffolk. He had no known gang affiliation and no violent criminal or drug arrests, police said. They asked anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 800-220-TIPS.

Lucille Johnson said she will follow the hunt for the killer, much like she did after her oldest son was gunned down 23 years ago near the home where she still lives.

For nearly two painful years, the slaying of Richard Johnson, 21, remained unsolved, and Lucille Johnson pushed the case detective not to forget her son, who was shot by a stranger after Johnson ridiculed the teen's car, police said.

Then in January 1989, police arrested Dexter S. Turner, 18, of North Amityville, who had boasted in the community about being the shooter. He was sentenced in 1991 to 25 years to life in prison in the case.

Johnson, who still has one son and a daughter, is confident detectives will solve the case soon.

"I ain't gonna let them rest until they do get 'em."

She said after more than two decades, the memory of her eldest son is still etched in her mind.

"I always think about him. Always do. Always will until the day I die," she said. "Now I'll think about both of them."

With Andrew Strickler