A 22-year-old Norwood woman has been arrested and charged with murder in the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Jayden Purvis, who was gunned down on a Bronx street late on Sunday, June 7, according to the NYPD.
As first reported by Norwood News, police said Diora Teal of Norwood was arrested on Monday, June 29, at 2:30 p.m. within the confines of the 52nd Precinct, which covers the neighborhood. She has been charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. Teal is presumed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.
Purvis, who lived in the Forest Houses section of the South Bronx, was shot multiple times in front of 366 East 207th Street, at the intersection with Decatur Avenue, a few doors from P.S. 56. Police said two people produced guns at around 11:54 p.m. on June 7 and shot him repeatedly in the torso, then fled on foot. Officers responded to a 911 call logged at 12:08 a.m. and found Purvis with multiple gunshot wounds. EMS took him to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The arrest reframes what police had described in the first weeks of the investigation. On June 9, the NYPD released photos of two persons of interest sought for questioning, and asked the public to help identify them. Both were described as male, each last seen wearing a black sweatshirt and black sweatpants, one in a blue medical mask and the other in a black face mask. One police source told Norwood News in the hours after the shooting that officers were searching for two men who fled in a black BMW sedan, heading north on Parkside Place. A second person is still being sought.
The motive was not known at the time, the police source said.
Neighbors described the block as quiet. A young resident told Norwood News he heard about three shots while he was at a Laundromat on Decatur Avenue near East 204th Street, and came upon Purvis lying face down roughly six minutes later. He said he and his friends called police, and that the victim’s phone rang while they waited for help. He believed it was Purvis’s wife or partner, and told her, “I think he’s dead.” Another man, speaking in Spanish, said he heard the gunfire but assumed it was fireworks. “It’s very rare for something like this to happen here,” a separate resident said. “It’s a good neighborhood with hardworking people. It’s unusual to see the police here.”
Violence has been rising across the northwest Bronx. Norwood News reported that a Bronx woman was charged in April with the fatal stabbing of Ramon Vasquez on Webster Avenue, a short distance away, and that three men were sought for a separate stabbing on East 207th Street about a week after Purvis was shot. According to NYPD CompStat figures cited by the outlet, year-to-date murders in the 52nd Precinct were up 33 percent as of June 21, and up 250 percent in the neighboring 46th Precinct.
Police are still asking anyone with information to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA. Tips can also be submitted at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or on X at @NYPDTips. All calls are confidential.
Featured image: Photo by Síle Molone
