Queens family says they were menaced for months by man accused of killing mom

Before he allegedly killed his own mother, a Queens man threatened a local family for months, claiming their home was really his, they told the Daily News on Monday.

Dashawn Coggins, 36, was charged with murder in the March 29 slaying of his 61-year-old mom Natalie Coggins. He was also hit with a menacing charge for a bizarre incident a week earlier in which he threatened 46-year-old Latasha Straughter and her family with a gun as he baselessly claimed he owned their home.

Straughter, her husband and five children moved into a rented home near the corner of 194th St. and 100th Ave. in the Hollis section of Queens in August, the woman told the Daily News on Monday.

She first met Coggins the day they moved in, when she spotted him walking up and down the driveway claiming the house belonged to him.

“[He was] saying, ‘This my house. Why are you moving in here?'” Straughter recalled. “He said he owned the property. It was really crazy.”

Coggins left then — but continued to show up to sort through the family’s mail.

“He said the house had been left to him and that he owned it,” Straughter said. “Another time he came with his mother. We had this argument with him and his mother not to have his mail delivered here.”

Straughter gave Coggins and his mother the number for the landlord, who recognized the man as a former tenant.

“The third time he came, he met with the landlord who showed him papers that this was not his house,” Straughter said. “He kept coming and coming. I told the police Post Office to not send his mail here.”

In mid-February, Straughter recovered surveillance footage from her Ring doorbell of Coggins stealing the security device from the front porch, she said.

“He was stalking the house,” Straughter recounted. “He wouldn’t stop harassing us. About two weeks ago, my son came and said, ‘Mommy, that man is back going through the mail.’”

Straughter confronted the man as he dug through her mailbox and asked him why he stole her Ring doorbell.

“He said, ‘F–k y’all, the DA is coming to put you out,'” she recalled. “I said, ‘We don’t know you. We don’t know you at all.’”

Coggins pulled “a big black gun” and pointed it at the woman.

“He said, ‘I’m going to kill you all, I’m going to shoot this s–t up,’” Straughter said. “I called the cops immediately, but by then he was gone.”

Cops searched for Coggins but told Straughter he was changing the license plates on his car — making it nearly impossible to track him. His father told The News that during this time, he went “off the grid” and started behaving strangely.

A week later, he would shoot his mother in the head in her home on 121st Ave. near Long St., according to police.

“It’s scary he could do that,” Straughter said of the slaying. “It’s terrifying. He could have shot me, my husband and our kids.”