Two friends found dead in burning Bronx car were shot in head

A former college hoops player and a nail salon owner found dead together in a burning car in the Bronx were shot to death in a gruesome double homicide, investigators have determined.

Firefighters found the bodies of Jesse Parrilla and Nikki Huang in the flaming wreck of Parrilla's mother's car about 4:15 a.m. Monday on Shore Road near Pelham Split Rock Golf Course in Pelham Bay Park.

Parrilla, 22, was shot in the chest and head and Huang, 23, was shot in the head and neck, the city medical examiner confirmed Wednesday. Cops recovered ballistic evidence inside and outside of the burnt-out Honda Accord, police sources said.

Firefighters on Monday found the two bodies in the driver and passenger seats a after responding to a call of a car on fire on Shore Road near Pelham Split Rock Golf Course in Pelham Bay Park. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)

"They must have kidnapped him. I believe they still have his phone," Parrilla's devastated mother, Michelle Morales, told the Daily News. "They brought him there and set it on fire to make it look like an accident. I have no idea who would do this. He was my only son."

"I want justice," she added. "He was a fine, loving, giving young man and a wonderful son."

Jesse Parrilla, 22 with his mother Michelle Morales. Parrilla was found shot in the head in a burning car near a Bronx Golf course on Monday. (Handout)

Neither victim had a criminal record, according to cops.

Parrilla worked for Uber Eats and was going to start a new job in the mailroom of Bellevue Hospital. But he dreamed of shooting hoops for the NBA, his mother said as a crowd of mourners consoled her outside her East Village home.

Parrilla played basketball for prep schools in New York City and then attended Genesee Community College, where he played point guard for the school's basketball team.

"He was on his way to playing professional basketball," his mother said. "That was his passion and his mission."

Parrilla's aunt, Nilda Reveron-Morales, said she doesn't know how Morales will recover from the loss of her only child.

"He was only 22. He was at the precipice of life. He had such a great future," she said. "How do you pick up the pieces after this? It's senseless."

Parrilla was doing Huang a favor by giving her a ride, his mother said. The two friends knew each other since middle school.

"She needed a ride and she called him, but I don't know how they ended up in the Bronx," Morales said. "He was home all that day, and he was supposed to meet me. He didn't show, and I called and called but he didn't pick up.... They shot him twice. They assassinated him."

Huang owned Nails by Nikki, a nail salon on Grand St. in Chinatown, and her parents own Wa Lung Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant down the street. The salon was a 21st birthday gift from Huang's devoted parents, friends said.

A growing memorial to Huang was set up outside her parents’ restaurant and shocked mourners gathered there Wednesday.

A memorial for Nikki Huang, 23, on the Lower East Side outside the Chinese restaurant her parents own. (Nicholas Williams/for New York Daily News)

"She was a people person, she knew everybody from up here, down here, everywhere," said a friend who declined to give her name. "For her 21st birthday [her parents] gave her her own business. . . . She used to do my nails for free. She was a people person."

"She looked out for everybody," the friend added. "You hungry? She fed them. You need your nails done? She did your nails. Everybody knew her. . . . She was always working, whether it was the nail salon, or the restaurant working with her family, she always worked."

Nikki Huang

The friend couldn't make sense of the slayings.

"I didn't believe it, there's no way. I was in shock. It didn't seem real because, like, why?" she said. "She wasn't a bad person at all."

"They were always here together, nail salon together, hanging out together," the friend said of the two victims. "They were happy. They were just happy."

Another mourner, Porfirio Almonte, has known Huang's family for years and eats regularly at their restaurant.

"She was like my daughter," he said of Huang. "I knew her since she was a little baby."

"Gun violence, I just don't like it," he added. "This broke my heart."