‘Unparalleled’ kindness: $50K raised for mother killed in murder-suicide

MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) – Loved ones are raising money for the family of a woman fatally shot on the Upper East Side in what police are calling a murder-suicide. 

As of Sunday, hundreds of people had donated over $50,000 to a GoFundMe for the family of Marisa Galloway, who was shot in the head just outside Gracie Mansion on East 88th Street before 9 a.m. Friday, according to the NYPD. 

“Marisa Galloway touched everyone she met. Her kindness, generosity, and love were unparalleled. She devoted her whole life to her two beautiful daughters..they were her world,” wrote Marc Bellanger, the GoFundMe’s organizer. 

Police suspect Kathleen Leigh, the grandmother of Galloway’s older child, was the killer, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. 

Galloway and Leigh were found shot in the head near a car that had Galloway’s younger child in the backseat, police said. Based on surveillance footage, police suspect Galloway had just put her child in the backseat and was packing a stroller in the trunk of her car when Leigh approached and shot her in twice, Kenny said. 

Leigh then shot herself, police said. The child was unharmed.

Police recovered two guns, one on the sidewalk between the two women and one in Leigh’s tote bag, Kenny said. 

Leigh, a retired probation officer from Chicago, had been living with family in New York City for years. The two women were entangled in a custody dispute, police said. 

“Marisa's untimely passing will leave a void in all of our lives. But her memory will live on in her daughters and in all of our hearts,” Bellanger wrote on the GoFundMe.