Two men found shot dead execution-style in their SUV near Union Square in Manhattan yesterday were each witnesses to separate murders in NYC last year—but cops don't think that's why they were killed.

Rashawn Washington and Terrance Serrano were found early Monday morning, in a parked SUV, each shot in the head, dead. They'd left a club called Roam (pictured below), on East 19th St., just blocks from Union Square and the Flatiron District, around 3:40 a.m. It was a brazen crime by any standard. One connection that's surfaced today: their past histories as (uncooperating) homicide witnesses. According to the NY Post:

Serrano is believed to have been at the scene July 26, 2009, when his brother, 19-year-old Micuan Serrano, was found dead with multiple bullet wounds on Surf Avenue in Coney Island. Police suspect Terrance may have been the intended target.

Detectives said Washington may have witnessed the Aug. 2, 2009, shooting death of Anna Sermon, an 87-year-old killed by a stray bullet at the Surfside Houses, also in Coney Island.

But police tell the NY Daily News that neither man cooperated as a witness, and that both were gang-bangers with lengthy arrest histories. They think that they may have gotten into an argument in the club that escalated into murder.
Serrano had tweeted about dying young just hours before being killed.

[NYP, NYDN]