‘A piece of me is gone’

A 21-year-old Queens woman was brutally gunned down after being chased into her own home by a “mystery” man who sprayed multiple rounds before striking her in the head, police and sources said Saturday. 

Dashanna Donovan was found with a fatal bullet wound to the head around 9:30 p.m. Friday when officers responded to a call about an assault at 96th Street near 31st Avenue in East Elmhurst, cops said. 

Several shell casings were scattered across the floor of Donovan’s apartment and the walls were riddled with bullet holes, police sources said. 

“I heard she saw the person and she ran so it’s definitely someone she knew,” her mom Helena Hypolite told The Post by phone. “Who? We don’t know.  It’s definitely a mystery.”

Surveillance video from outside the building showed the brute chasing the young woman into the apartment with a firearm, the sources said.

But it remains unclear what the relationship between the victim and her killer was, cops said.

There had been no arrests as of Saturday afternoon.

“I’m hurt,” the heartbroken mom said. “I feel broken like a piece of me is gone.”

A neighbor said he was sitting across the street when he heard the shots.

“We were sitting outside enjoying the last of the summer,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous. “I heard three shots — pop, pop, pop — one after the other.”

“It was coming from around the back,” he said pointing across the street at the attached house. “I didn’t see anything, I just heard it.  We were scared. 

“We ran inside because we didn’t know what was happening.”

Donovan, who was born on the US Virgin Island of St. Thomas, loved to dance and would only eat her mother’s chicken curry, the mom explained.

“Her smile,” the mom said when asked what she’d miss most about her daughter. “It just brightened up the room. She was always funny, she liked to crack jokes.”

She pleaded for an end to gun violence.

“The scripture says quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger,” she said. “Some people are ignorant. They let their anger get the better of them.”

The grieving mom urged the killer to come forward.

“I feel like he should turn himself in,” she said. “I don’t understand how he slept last night because I wasn’t able to sleep.”