 | Quote: Sword-swinging 'Ugly Betty' actor Michael Brea slays mother for being 'sinner,' police sources say
BY MATTHEW LYSIAK, ALISON GENDAR AND LARRY MCSHANE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, November 24th 2010, 4:00 AM
Actor's alleged sword slay stuns relatives
Convinced his church-going mom was possessed by Satan, a Scripture-spouting killer hacked her to death with a 3-foot sword as she knelt in their apartment, police sources said.
Deranged killer Michael Brea "told the doctors that he saw the Devil, and that the Devil was somehow in his mother," a police source told the Daily News after the gruesome slaying.
Neighbors insisted the brutal killing of Yannick Brea early Tuesday occurred as police ignored their desperate demands to kick in the dying woman's front door.
Yannick Brea, 55, was found kneeling - as if offering a final prayer - after she was butchered during her son's demented diatribe about repentance, police said.
"Sinner! Sinner!" howled Michael Brea, a bit-part actor who once appeared on "Ugly Betty," neighbors and police sources said. "You never accepted Jesus!"
The suspect, still in full "fire and brimstone" babble when carried out on a stretcher, was clutching his Bible and a Masonic ceremonial sword when cops busted into a bedroom, police sources said.
"He yelled, 'The greatest architect in the universe!' " - a term sometimes used by Masons for God - while he was being taken away, said neighbor Sydney Clare, 15. "He looked crazy."
"His poor mother must have been terrified, and the cops just stood a few feet away," said Sydney's brother, Gregory, one of several residents who vainly begged police to burst inside.
Neighbors said the cops stood outside the door for close to an hour - and even left the scene at one point - before finally entering.
They discovered the victim with multiple gashes to her head inside the blood-spattered bathroom.
Sydney, whose father owns the building, said his dad gave four cops permission to break down the front door.
"They just kept saying protocol this and protocol that," Sydney added. "Now a woman's dead who should be alive if only the police would have listened."
Brea's uncle said his nephew, 31, apparently took the ceremonial sword with him while leaving a Masons meeting late Monday night. A rattled Martial Brea said his nephew was typically a smart, quiet man.
"Something happened that made him do it," the uncle told The News. "The Devil entered him."
The swords - typically stainless steel blades with short, black grips - sell online for about $280.
Police received three 911 calls in four minutes after neighbors in the four-story Prospect Heights building heard Michael Brea's high-decibel harangue and his mother's shrieks for help.
"Her screams woke me up," said one neighbor. "Screams I'll never forget."
When police arrived around 1:15 a.m., they met neighbors urging them to head inside - but opted to stay in the hallway despite the commotion.
"At one point, the mother opened the window and screamed, 'Help, he's going to kill me!' " said neighbor Andrea Natoli, 25. "I saw blood on the window sill. Blood all over it."
Cops left but returned after yet another 911 call at 1:59 a.m., a police source said. They were greeted by a neighbor who persuaded cops to enter by pointing out a blood-smeared, second-floor window.
The neighbor said he first dialed 911 after hearing the mother screaming incoherently as the son shouted "broken Biblical verses."
The victim's family was outraged that cops didn't enter immediately.
"To think my sister was inside, crying for her life, and the police that are supposed to be protecting her are standing at the door," said Serge Mercel, the victim's older brother. "It's enough to make me sick."
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said officers handled the incident properly.
"It's a barricaded situation and that is handled by the Emergency Services Unit," Kelly said. "What happens in a barricade situation is that responding patrol officers, if possible, wait for the Emergency Services forces to arrive."
Later, Deputy Inspector Kim Royster, an NYPD spokeswoman, confirmed that the first officers to arrive backed out of the bloody scene and called ESU. "This was necessary protocol, because the person appeared dangerous to himself and the officers," she said.
The victim was described as a hardworking, family-oriented Haitian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. 40 years ago. She was devoted to her twin sons, who shared her Brooklyn apartment.
Yannick Brea was a hotel worker who survived the 9/11 attacks, leaving her job at the World Trade Center Marriott before the twin towers collapsed, neighbors said.
Michael Brea had no prior arrests, and police had no record of any previous disturbances at the Brooklyn apartment. | |
