Beloved New York City Bakery Owner Fatally Dies From Self-Inflicted Gunshot

Renee Mancino, the beloved bakery owner of Carrot Top Pastries in New York City, amid health issues and a dramatic hike in rent, walked into work on Friday and ended her life.

According to an employee who spoke to the New York Post, the beloved 66-year baker died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the throat.

Natasha Rivera, 28, was on the scene at the time Mancino decided to end her life in the bakery. “Workers heard a low ‘pow’ but didn’t think anything about it until they heard the manager screaming, ‘Help me, help me,'” she said.

The Carrot Top bakery is famously known in the Washington Heights area. So popular, that customers were shocked and saddened by Mancino’s suicide. Some remembered the woman who was referred to as “Queen of Carrot Cake” as a “hard worker” who had a “heart of gold.” Rivera even likened Renee to a mother figure.

“She was like a mom to me. She always had everyone smiling. There was no sadness around that lady.”

Mancino’s husband Bob, the manager of the storefront, was with his wife when she shot herself in the basement of their bakery. Her husband blamed the baker’s death on the landlord, which was New York Presbyterian Hospital. However, Renee dealt with woes greater than the hike in rent.

According to the New York Post, in addition to the possibility of losing her storefront property, she also struggled with health complications. Renee Mancino faced a stage four cancer diagnoses and also had double knee surgery. As far as the popular bakery goes, Carrot Top Pastries entered negotiations in 2010 after New York Presbyterian Hospital attempted to raise the rent all the way up to $10,000, which meant the Mancinos had to pay $15,000 in total to keep their business at the location. That’s quite the difference from $5,000 that the couple was used to.

Not mincing words, Bob Mancino said of his wife’s death, “The landlord killed her. My wife is dead because of those co——ers. Thirty years don’t mean nothing. We paid rent 31 years and you have to open up negotiations? We broke our backs for 31 years. We built this business.”

You Never Know What Someone Is Really Going Through…#RIP#ReneeMancino#CarrotTop#Was… http://t.co/UIdfrVi9bp pic.twitter.com/MpPgjjKFrP

— Central Park in pics (@fromcentralprk) November 11, 2014

According to a source from the law enforcement, Mancino used her husband’s gun to take her life.

Back in 2012, Renee posed happily with her daughter Nikki as the bakery was named Best of New York in 2012.

[Image via @mrlradioshow/Twitter]