Ex-Restaurant Worker Sought in N.Y. Killings

NEW YORK — Police Thursday night were seeking a former restaurant worker for questioning in the grisly slaying of five employees in a Wendy’s restaurant in Queens.

The workers--two more were wounded--were systematically shot execution-style by two gunmen who apparently used inside information in robbing the Wendy’s late Wednesday. They failed to get $20,000 left in two locked safes in the basement, sources said.

Hours after the deadly rampage, authorities said, police were looking for a former employee of the Wendy’s who is wanted in connection with the June 23, 1999, robbery of a McDonald’s in Queens.

The slayings occurred some time after 11 p.m. EDT Wednesday when two gunmen herded seven workers into a basement walk-in cooler and shot them at close range, police said.

Four of the workers died on the refrigerator floor and a fifth died Thursday at a hospital. Two others were wounded, one critically.

One of the wounded men, Patrick Castro, 23, freed himself and called 911, police said.

Killed were the manager, Jean-Dumel Auguste, 26; Ramon Nazario, 44; Anita C. Smith, 23; Jeremy Mele, 18, and Ali Ibadat, 40. JaQuione Johnson, 18, was in critical condition Thursday night.