Police in New York City have arrested a 30-year-old career criminal in the cold-blooded murder of a 19-year-old Burger King cashier, who was gunned down after handing over $100 during a robbery earlier this week.
The NYPD on Friday announced that Winston Glynn, who had worked at the same Burger King as the victim, but a year apart, was in custody in connection with the Sunday morning killing of Kristal Bayron-Nieves.
During a press conference on Friday afternoon, police revealed that Glynn allegedly shot Bayron-Nieves as she was crouching by a second cash register, which she tried to open in order to comply with his demands for more cash, but could not because she did not have a key.
Glynn faces charges of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon.
Glynn was apprehended in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn on Thursday night, after police say they used surveillance video to track his movements from Harlem.
Cops revealed that a pair of white earbuds hanging from the murder suspect’s pants helped lead them to the suspect.
Glynn was filmed yelling unintelligibly, hurling profanities and grimacing as he was being led out of the 25th Precinct on Friday afternoon.
Police arrested Winston Glynn, a 30-year-old homeless man, in connection with Sunday’s murder of Burger King cashier Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19
He faces charges of murder, robbery, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon
Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, was shot and killed while working a night shift at a Burger King last Sunday
Police have arrested Winston Glynn, 30, in the killing of a 19-year-old Burger King cashier. Surveillance photo of the suspect during the commission of the crime is seen above
Police say Glynn had worked at the same Burger King as the victim between April 2020 and December 2020c, more than a year before she was hired. He is pictured above in his work uniform
Clothing seen on the suspect at the time of the killing was said to have been spotted on Glynn’s social media pages, and witnesses helped confirm his identity, according to the police sources.
Glynn’s address is listed as a Days Inn hotel in Queens, which has been used as a homeless shelter.
According to reporting by the New York Post, citing police sources, Glynn is a Jamaican national and is not a US citizen.
Police tell DailyMail.com Glynn has a criminal history in New York, which includes charges of criminal possession of a weapon, counts of menacing and menacing with a knife and criminal mischief. One of the menacing cases is still pending.
During Friday’s press conference, police officials said that Glynn had worked at the Burger King on East 116th Street between April 2020 and December 2020. There is nothing to suggest that he knew Bayron-Nieves, who was hired as a cashier at the eatery more than a year after Glynn quit.
Police recounted how just before 2am on Sunday, Glynn walked into the fast-food restaurant, wearing a ski mask, an all-black outfit, and carrying a backpack. He had white earbuds hanging out of his pants pocket.
Glynn was led out of the 25th Precinct in Harlem on Friday afternoon following his arrest
Glynn was reportedly caught after police reviewed surveillance video from around the crime scene
Glynn is homeless and has been living in a hotel in Queens that doubles as a shelter
Glynn is pictured grimacing while being ushered into a vehicle on Friday
Detectives have found posts on Glynn’s social media pages wearing the same clothes as the masked suspect in the Burger King surveillance video
Glynn was said to have worked at another Burger King eatery. It’s unclear if he knew Bayron-Nieves before allegedly killing her
Glynn allegedly pistol-whipped a manager and then aimed a gun at Bayron-Nieves, demanding cash.
The 19-year-old cashier handed the attacker $100, but he demanded more money. Police said Bayron-Nieves crouched down to try and open a second cash register drawer, but had no key. That is when Glynn fired a single shot and fled, grabbing the Burger King manager’s phone on his way out.
Bayron-Nieves was pronounced dead at the scene.
‘There was not reason to shoot this young woman,’ said NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey. ‘Money had been handed over. She was killed for no apparent reason.’
Chief of Detectives James Essig said that dozens of police officers canvassed surveillance video from the subway system and spotted a man wearing different clothes than the suspect in the Burger King video, but with the same white earbuds hanging from his pocket.
They eventually tracked down Glynn to an address on Patchen Avenue in Brooklyn and arrested him without incident.
Detectives recovered the backpack, earbuds and some distinctive clothing, Essig said. The gun used in the killing has yet to be located.
The chief of detectives added that all evidence indicates that Glynn had pre-planned the armed robbery at his former place of employment.
Mayor Eric Adams attended the press conference and thanked the detectives for their work on this case.
‘I don’t come to press conferences of arrests, but this one was so personal,’ he said. ‘He murdered trhat child. he had no regard for the people he assaulted with that gun inside the restaurant.’
Bayron-Nieves’s family have been notified of Glynn’s arrest, which came just hours after a candlelight vigil was held outside the Burger King at East 116th Street and Lexington Avenue, where the cashier was shot dead.
‘My family is actually excited that they caught [the suspect],’ Bayron-Nieves’ cousin, Shiming Nieves, said. ‘That’s not gonna bring her back or anything, but a little bit of relief and little by little we’re gonna be picking up the pieces, to get our family strong again.’
A $20,000 reward had been offered for information leading to an arrest, with half of that amount being put up by billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis, the CEO of the grocery store chain Gristedes.
Prior to Thursday’s arrest, Catsimatidis, 73, said he was ’emotionally distraught’ when he heard about the death of the Burger King worker.
‘This young woman lost her life over $100! I choked up,’ he told the New York Post on Tuesday.
Billionaire John Catsimatidis, 73, said he was ’emotionally distraught’ when he heard about the death of Bayron-Nieves and offered a $10,000 reward for anyone that helps with the ‘arrest and conviction of the killer’
The radio host and former Republican candidate for mayor posted an ad offering a ‘$10,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of Bayron-Nieves’ killer.
The fatal robbery occurred as New York City’s crime rate soars after newly-installed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s controversial decision to downgrade burglary, armed robbery and drug dealing from felonies to misdemeanors.
The number of robberies has since increased by 19.4 percent over the course of the last week, as compared to the same time last year.
Bayron-Nieves was working as a cashier at the fast-food chain when an armed robber entered the restaurant at around 1am.
The gunman pistol-whipped a male customer before punching a female manager in the face.
Bayron-Nieves, who just started the job three weeks ago, gave the robber $100 cash from the drawer, an eyewitness said, according to her mother.
Police offered a $10,000 reward to anyone with information
The criminal turned to leave, but turned around again and shot Bayron-Nieves in the torso.
The teen was transported to nearby Metropolitan Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
‘She didn’t deserve to be mowed down while working at a Burger King,’ a police source said.
Her family told the Post that she had already requested more security and was planning to move to day shifts after fearing for her safety when leaving work.
‘She is only 19, and she has more than 50 homeless people sleeping in front of the store,’ her mother, Kristie Nieves, 36, said in Spanish through a friend and translator Nathalie Pagan.
Her mother went on to say she felt particularly torn over her daughter’s death after convincing her to continue going to work despite the teen’s concerns.
‘Kristal said Friday, ‘I don’t want to go. I’m scared,” Nieves said.
‘I say, ‘You have to go and be responsible.’ At 10 pm I wake her up to go and tell her, ‘You have to go. You have to be responsible. You have to get a better life.”
Pagan added that Kristal’s mom ‘feels guilty about that. That’s what she tells me earlier, that she feels guilty because she wakes her up to go.’
According to her family, a young man, who stopped by to see her at the restaurant to bring her a flower almost nightly, was there when she was killed.
‘He told us he was there until her last breath,’ Pagan said.
‘He tells us when he went and walk to the place that he always buy her a flower. He went back, and they open the door to this guy that was dressed like them, in all black.’
Bayron-Nieves reportedly mistook the robber for a delivery man before he punched the restaurant manager and then knocking out the young man there to see her.
The 19-year-old was shot dead at a Burger King on 116th and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem around 1am on Sunday
The 19-year-old was afraid to be working nights and had asked to be switched over to the day shift, which was supposed to happen next Friday
Pagan said the teen ultimately gave the thief all the money in the register, about $100 in cash.
‘So (the young man) says that the guy turns around and he comes back and shot her,’ Pagan said.
‘That he turn around like he is going to leave, but he comes back and shoots her.’
‘She’d done everything that he say,’ she said.
‘She give him the money and everything. That she didn’t even do nothing wrong.’
Sunday’s fatal robbery and shooting incident comes as crime continues to surge in NYC with a 19.4 percent increase in robberies reported
Former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said newly-elected Mayor Eric Adams has his hands tied in terms of crime while Bragg’s office implements its woke policies.
Adams had promised a return to broken-windows policing after winning on a tough-on-crime approach campaign.
‘I don’t know how Mr. Adams is going to do that when the DA is effectively handcuffing the police,’ he said.
Several of New York City’s borough district attorneys also took aim at the soft-on-crime policies laid out this week by Bragg.