Holistic health guru stabbed dead inside Manhattan wine shop by fiancé after she took off engagement ring and dumped him: cops

Police are seen in front of Wine Heaven liquor store.

The mismatched lovers never walked down the aisle — but death did them part.

Holistic wellness guru Gabrielle Gottlieb, running for her life from her knife-wielding fiancé, was caught and brutally slain in a Manhattan wine shop shortly after removing her engagement ring and breaking off their mercurial romance, police and a friend of the victim said Thursday.

“You’ll be punished for this,” the deranged and freshly spurned John Foster warned before he burst into the shop and plunged a knife into the terrified 64-year-old victim’s chest.

He then ran to the rooftop of her five-story apartment building two blocks away and, surrounded by cops, threatened to jump, telling them, “She was the love of my life.”

As the standoff continued, he ignored their orders to get down on the ground, instead screaming “Shoot me!” and charging at them, sources said. Coolheaded cops managed to grab him and take him into custody.

Holistic wellness guru Gabrielle Gottlieb (pictured) was brutally slain in a Manhattan wine shop Wednesday, shortly after removing her engagement ring and breaking off her romance with John Foster.

His slain fiancée was the proprietor of Well Balanced Woman, an acupuncture center offering a holistic approach to concerns from fertility to menopausal health.

“She was a very kind, soft-spoken, gentle, mild-mannered kind of person,” her cousin, who wished not to be named, told the Daily News. “Oh my God. It’s shocking.”

Foster, a 63-year-old martial arts expert who went by the name Jenzen Fury, entered their doomed relationship carrying a rap sheet with nine arrests — including five for drug possession and one for drug peddling.

“She was an incredibly accomplished woman who had terrible taste in men,” Gottlieb’s friend of four decades, Judy Jackson, told the Daily News. “Even though he had this history, she felt that she could help him. She believed in him when he minimized and diminished his past.”

Holistic wellness guru Gabrielle Gottlieb was brutally slain in a Manhattan wine shop Wednesday, shortly after removing her engagement ring and breaking off her romance with John Foster, pictured on a rooftop shortly after while threatening to jump.(Sam Costanza/for New York Daily News)

The couple met about a year ago at a spirituality workshop and became engaged after just three months.

“He approached her,” said Jackson. “He’s a very good-looking man and in incredible shape. He paid her a lot of attention. It developed quickly.”

Foster, who lived in the Bronx, started spending time at the victim’s much tonier Manhattan digs after the two began dating.

Gottlieb became disturbed over his volatile temperament but invited Foster to stay with her during the coronavirus pandemic, worried he would become infected, Jackson said. Things only got worse with them stuck in tight quarters together.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea raised red flags last week about fears that domestic violence victims were not calling for help during the coronavirus shutdown. Cops have been calling known victims, helping them set up safety plans and giving them code words to use if they call for help with their abuser listening in.

Gottlieb wasn’t on the NYPD’s radar because cops had never been called about the couple, whose relationship had apparently never turned violent before.

But Jackson, who works as a forensic psychologist, was concerned enough that she gave her friend a safe word to use if things did turn dangerous living with Foster — “high sierra.” As it turned out, Gottlieb never had a chance to utter it.

“She was on the breaking point because of his volatility,” Jackson said. “She was a very soft, quiet person.”

Holistic wellness guru Gabrielle Gottlieb was brutally slain in a Manhattan wine shop Wednesday, shortly after removing her engagement ring and breaking off her romance with John Foster, pictured on a rooftop shortly after while threatening to jump.(Sam Costanza/for New York Daily News)

The last straw came Wednesday night when Foster came home to the victim’s Kips Bay apartment with his knuckles bleeding from punching a wall, ranting he was overcharged on an $18 tab at Burger King — and invoking the name of Adolph Hitler to his Jewish bride-to-be during the ugly tirade.

Jackson, who spoke with the victim shortly before her death, said Gottlieb told her she took off her ring and placed it on the finger of a statue of Buddha.

“I can’t have the peace of my home disrupted anymore,” Jackson quoted her friend as saying. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Gottlieb later texted Jackson that the ugly confrontation with Foster had calmed down.

“She said, ‘Everything’s OK — you don’t have to call police,’ ” recounted Jackson. “That was a deadly miscalculation.”

She ended up being chased by him for two blocks before he caught up with her in the wine store and allegedly stabbed her. She was rushed to Bellevue Hospital but could not be saved.

The knife was found at the scene, cops said.

Foster was taken to Bellevue for a psychiatric evaluation after cops nabbed him. He’s charged with murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon.