The twin sister of a 19-year-old girl who was stabbed to death outside a Brooklyn deli after she allegedly rejected the advances of a man has recounted how she tried to protect her sibling when the drunken man became enraged that she would not follow him back on Instagram.
Sanyia Spain and her sister Samyia had taken a break from a family game night and were walking to the Slope Natural Plus on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope with their brother at around 2:20 a.m. Sunday when a friend pointed out that someone was following Samyia, the surviving teen told the Daily News.
“I grabbed her phone and I was like, ‘Come with me, come with me,’” Sanyia said. “I was like, ‘Why are you talking to that boy?’ She said, ‘I don’t want to talk to that boy.’”
Sanyia said to get him off their backs, Samyia decided to give her Instagram handle to the man, who relatives told The Post the girls met earlier in the evening at a local club.
“She said she wasn’t going to follow him back,” she said. “That’s it. She said no.” At that point, she said, the man became enraged.
He started to argue with the two teenagers, and stormed out of the bodega — but came back just a few minutes later, Sanyia recounted.
“He pushed little Samyia, and then I pushed him,” she said. “And then everybody else started pushing him out the door.”
An employee at the store became involved and kicked the drunken man out of the store with his friends, and locked the door behind them, according to Sanyia.
The twins then got their late-night snack and left the store — only to find the assailant armed with a knife, and the door to the bodega locked behind them.
“He had a knife in his hand and was saying, ‘I’m gonna stab y’all in the face,’” Sanyia recounted.
“I’m telling everyone to back up. And he pushed little Samyia to the ground.”
When the assailant started to run at Samyia with the knife in his hand, the girls’ older brother intervened — punching him and sending the man to the ground.
That is when the situation descended into an all-out brawl, Sanyia said.
“As I was going to grab [Samyia’s phone], he stabbed me in my arm,” she said.
“Samyia then asked him to give her the phone back, and he stabbed her in the neck.”
“She said, ‘I’m about to faint,’” Sanyia recalled. “As soon as she said ‘I’m about to faint,’ I called 911.”
Police found Samyia with stab wounds to her chest and neck, and rushed both twins to New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where Samyia was later pronounced dead.
Sanyia, meanwhile, has since been released from the hospital.
She called her family members after the attack.
“She says, ‘Granddaddy, Samyia got stabbed and she died,’” said the victims’ grandfather, Alphonso Goodson, 66.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “When I got the call, I came as soon as I could.”
Friends and family have now set up a makeshift memorial outside the twins’ Brooklyn home.
Sanyia said she is now “trying to be strong” for her parents, as she remains in shock.
The two girls were regulars at the bodega, according to employee Mohammed Albher.
““They used to come every day,” he said.
“They come, shake my hand. Say, how are you?”
He wasn’t working when the attack occurred early Sunday morning, but said the killing left him distraught.
“I don’t want to see nobody hurt — nobody, nobody,” he said, “She’s a nice girl.”
Samyia and Sania were born in Brooklyn, and spent some time in North Carolina before moving back to the Big Apple.
“They wanted to come back to the city because this is what they know,” the girls’ grandfather said. “It was too quiet down there.”
He described Samyia as “beautiful” and “very respectful.”
“My granddaughter was the best,” Goodson said. “I love both of them, and I’m sorry to see that she’s leaving me now. What can I do?”
No arrests have been made yet in the slashings, as police continue to search for two men — one of whom was last seen wearing a ski mask.
“The store got the video,” Goodson noted. “Somebody knows, somebody’s gonna come forward.”
Read More: Twin who survived Park Slope stabbing desperately tried to protect sister after drunken man
