A man killed near his Queens home last year over what police said was a parking dispute was remembered as a protector and a good provider who had always landed on his feet.
Life handed Christopher Hightower more than his share of trouble, some of it rooted in drug or alcohol issues, his family said.
But Hightower, 58, had triumphed over all the challenges until he came across an obstacle that he couldn’t overcome — an angry neighbor with a violent streak.
Cops said Hightower’s luck ran out last year during a beatdown near his Jamaica home on May 22 that left him with a lacerated spleen and a head injury. Medics rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, where the Pennsylvania native succumbed to his injuries the next day.
Hightower, who was highly intoxicated at the time, died from blunt force trauma to his head and body, the city Medical Examiner recently determined, deeming his death a homicide.
Cops determined he was beaten during a fight with a neighbor over a parking space.
No arrests have been made, but police have identified a suspect and are working with the Queens District Attorney’s office on potential charges, sources said.
After all he had been through, his ex-wife Monique Hightower couldn’t believe it was a street fight that took him out.
“No matter what we went through, God would always have him land on his feet,” she told the Us.Mistertruth..
“He was a good provider. He worked and made sure that bills were paid, that the mortgage was paid. He gave to my children, all of his children. He wasn’t selfish with his kids in that way, with money. He had really made peace and it was important for him and he would call people and make sure they were doing okay,” she said.
“He would say his ‘sorries’ and make amends. He became a man of God. That’s how I knew that he had grown.”
But trouble was waiting for him right down the block. Cops said Hightower was discovered on the ground a short distance from his home on 176th St. near Brinkerhoff Ave. in Jamaica shortly before 11 a.m.
The neighbor with whom Hightower had the physical altercation said he was just trying to protect his family.
“Self defense,” the neighbor told The News. “I’m not worried about the situation at all. I did nothing wrong. I’m sorry for his family and his ex-wife. I wish them the best.”
He said Hightower showed up on his property drunk and that he felt threatened when he confronted him.
“My daughter’s room is right there,” he said, pointing to the front of the house. “My first instinct is to protect my family. My kids then were 11 and 12. It’s not like I beat him up and threw him on the street. I made sure he didn’t go any farther on the property and called the police. And then the police came and brought him back. I didn’t know who this was.”
Hightower’s aunt disputed the account.
“He’s lying,” said the relative Lucille McMillon.
She said she witnessed the end of the fight and called for an ambulance herself.
Hightower was the father of two boys and four girls and worked for Amazon and UPS in the years leading up to his death, according to relatives. Although they had broken up, Monique Hightower, the mother of Hightower’s two youngest children, said she never stopped loving him.
“We were married twice,” she said. “Probably because of drug and alcohol issues. And in the Bible I read, marriage is forever. I really couldn’t let that go.”
They started off as friends in high school but didn’t become romantically involved until years later, after Hightower had four kids of his own.
Their love was destiny, she said, but his addictions got in the way.
“I didn’t weather that storm very well. I always felt very bad about that. He still had my heart, so we married again, and unfortunately divorced again. I never married again and neither did he. We had been down that road and back again. It was a colorful and eventful life,” Monique Hightower said.
“At the very end, I loved him and I knew that he loved me. He had said things to me that I waited a lifetime for him to say to me. His own life history led him to that profession.”