A man killed three people and wounded another before turning the gun on himself yesterday in Queens, after a domestic dispute escalated into a murderous rampage, police said.

Jimmie Dawkins, 20, shot his mother, Sonia Taylor, 44, her wheelchair-bound boyfriend, Arnold Lawson, 47, and his nurse’s aide, Syndia Brye, 28, execution-style before climbing the stairs to the second floor of his mother’s two-story home and taking his own life, police said. Police found each victim with gunshots to the face, a police spokesman, Assistant Chief Michael Collins, said.

A fourth victim, who was a nephew of Lawson, survived the gunfire by playing dead in a closet next to the body of his uncle, police said.

Police arrived at 116–31 225th St. in the Cambria Heights section of Queens after Taylor placed a 911 call at 11:38 a.m. Taylor told the dispatcher that Dawkins was wrecking her home, Chief Collins said.

Police arrived at the residence about 13 minutes later to find the bodies in three separate rooms, Chief Collins said.

When Taylor’s sister arrived at the residence after the murders, a reporter from the TV channel NY1 informed her about the incident, and she began crying and blamed the police for not arresting Dawkins earlier. Taylor’s sister said the internal affairs bureau of the police department had been informed about Dawkins’s previous violent behavior and did nothing to solve the problem.

On October 25, 2006, police responded to a 911 call from Taylor, who complained of her son’s violent behavior, Mr. Collins said. Dawkins was apprehended by police and taken to Brooklyn Hospital as an emotionally disturbed person. Taylor later filed a report with internal affairs in which she stated that Dawkins should have been arrested rather than hospitalized, Chief Collins said.

On Monday, Taylor placed two calls to the police, at about 3 a.m. and about 3 p.m., complaining of domestic disputes with Dawkins, Chief Collins said. She said Dawkins would not let her use the family’s phone and computer, he said.

Police responded to both calls and did not find sufficient evidence to arrest Dawkins, Chief Collins said. He said that in each of the three phone calls, Taylor made no mention of a weapon.

The only witness to the murders, Lawson’s nephew, fled the scene through a bedroom window, police said. He had recently moved to Queens from Jamaica to care for his uncle, who had sustained a stroke, Chief Collins said.

The witness was in a bedroom with his uncle when a fight broke out between Taylor and Dawkins, police said. Seconds later, the shouting escalated to gunshots, and Dawkins broke into the bedroom, police said. With a 40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic handgun, Dawkins shot Lawson in the face and in the chest, and then shot the nephew. After his leg was grazed by a bullet, Lawson’s nephew fell into a closet and pretended he was dead, police said.

The bodies of Taylor and Brye, both shot in the face, were found 3 feet apart in a front room of the home, police said.

Preliminary background checks on the handgun used to shoot the three victims found that it was not stolen, Chief Collins said.