Police finally arrested a fugitive wanted for killing a man in Dyker Heights last month — giving the victim’s family a sense of closure in the brutal attack.
NYPD officers cuffed 45-year-old Phillip Meyers on April 24 on murder charges, alleging that he brutally assaulted 55-year-old John Sarquiz on March 29 during a robbery outside Dean Mini Market on 13th Avenue.
“We are grateful to announce that the murderer was arrested today in Brooklyn. Thank you to the NYPD and Brooklyn South Homicide Detectives on the case and all other law enforcement that were involved,” Christina Sarquiz, the victim’s sister said. “The Sarquiz Family thanks you all for your support. Every text, email, message, flower, donation, visit, thought, prayer, meatloaf, cauliflower dish and chicken cutlet tray has uplifted us in the most special way.”
When authorities arrived on the scene at the intersection of 73rd Street, they found Sarquiz lying on the sidewalk unconscious with severe head trauma.
Paramedics rushed Sarquiz to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where he remained unresponsive but alive, until April 3 when his family took him off life support.
Police publicly identified Meyers, a Brooklyn resident who lived nearby in Dyker Heights, as a suspect on April 5, but were unable to track him down for over two weeks.
But on Monday night, the NYPD’s Regional Fugitive Task Force, an elite squad of officers made up of US Marshals and NYPD detectives, arrested Meyers at a building on 74th Street, just around the corner from where he allegedly killed Sarquiz.
Local Council Member Justin Brannan took to Twitter to thank law enforcement agents for making the arrest.
Phillip Meyers, wanted for the March 29 murder of John Sarquiz in Dyker Heights, has been apprehended. Thank you NYPD and all law enforcement officers involved.
— Justin Brannan (@JustinBrannan) April 24, 2023
Following Sarquiz’s death, family members set up a GoFundMe page to aid them in paying for funeral and burial costs, which has raised $7,690 from the Dyker Heights community as of Monday.
“When John’s father died 10 years ago, John made a promise to care for his mother until the day she died, and that was what he was doing 110%,” the fundraiser said. “She was everything to him, and he was everything to her. So much more than money was robbed that day; the beautiful relationship between a mother and son was destroyed, leaving his mother, a strong but now deeply wounded woman, struggling to make sense of it all.”
This year, as of April 16, when the most recent NYPD data is available, there has been just one other murder in the 68th Police Precinct, where Meyers allegedly killed Sarquiz.
During that time, the Police Department recorded 113 killings in the Five Boroughs.
