A popular hip-hop deejay and TV personality was gunned down in cold blood just steps from his Staten Island home yesterday — left with a single dollar in his wallet, law-enforcement sources said.
Corey McGriff, who went by the name DJ Megatron on WQHT-FM Hot 97 radio, may have been distracted talking his cellphone when he was ambushed on Osgood Avenue near Vanderbilt Avenue in Clifton at about 2 a.m. and shot once in the chest, sources said.
Witnesses told cops they saw at least four young men running from the area after the shooting.
“It was bad timing — being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the victim’s grieving mother, Louvenia McGriff, suggesting that the motive was robbery.
But police sources said they’ve all but ruled out a street stickup. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting itself, and McGriff’s wallet — containing the dollar — was found on him, as was his phone. Instead, investigators said they are looking at several scenarios, including whether someone was angry over being stiffed on a debt owed by McGriff, 32.
Three months ago, a person using the name “Megapayup” raged against McGriff on YouTube:
“Megatron, i use to think he was mad cool . . . I always helped him out when ever he needed it. . . . This one time tho, I was the fool.
“Who hides and tries to dodge people they owe. . . . So u say ur not gonna pay the bill. . . . Bad shyt will stay happening to u, cuz you do bad.”
McGriff’s mom said she was told that it didn’t appear McGriff had put up a fight when he was confronted because he had no wounds except from the bullet that tore through his left rib cage, lung and heart.
Two neighbors called 911 saying they heard gunfire, but by the time cops arrived, McGriff was already dead, flat on his back on the pavement, his eyes open.
Detectives were poring over his cellphone records to see whom he may have called or who called him right before he was gunned down.
In addition to his radio gig, McGriff appeared on TV’s BET musical countdown show “106 and Park.”
He leaves three children: a daughter, Zaharia, 11, and sons, Zion, 4, and Isaiah, 9 months.
It was unclear why McGriff was on the street at that hour — his 4-year-old son had been left home alone, law-enforcement sources said. They said McGriff had a girlfriend with whom he lived on and off.
The victim had been in trouble in the past, having racked up several arrests for marijuana possession and sale, police sources said. He also received probation in 2007 for a weapons bust in New Jersey.
Additional reporting by Frank Rosario, Kevin Fasick and John Doyle