‘HE WRECKED THE WHOLE FAMILY’
Rape suspect eyed for Lynn murder
A suspect in a Monday night rape made chilling statements during the alleged sexual assault that has police calling him a “person of interest” in a deadly shooting of a pizza delivery man in Lynn, cops said.
“Thank you for making this easy,” Brian G. Brito told his rape victim, according to a North Andover police report. “I had to kill someone today that made it hard. I am going to leave you some money.”
Brito, 21, of Manchester, N.H., faces charges of armed robbery while masked, aggravated rape, and kidnapping during an alleged attack at a North Andover variety store Monday at 10:20 p.m. in what officials said may have been an hours-long crime spree.
He has yet to be arraigned on those charges.
Brito was also named as a person of interest in the slaying of Sina Zangiband, 24, of Salem, who was delivering food for Atha’s Pizza in Lynn shortly before 6 p.m. when he was shot multiple times on Bowler Street, according to the Essex District Attorney’s Office.
The deadly shooting shattered Zangiband’s family.
His brother-in-law, who only identified himself as Ryan, 44, told the Herald the alleged killer “wrecked the whole (expletive) family. I hope he feels the pain that we feel.”
Zangiband’s grief-stricken mother, Shahin, wept uncontrollably while speaking with a WCVB-TV reporter at the family’s Salem home, saying: “They killed my son, he was innocent.”
His enraged father, Ali, told the TV station: “I don’t know why the guy killed him. Why? For what?,” adding, “Stop the guns! Our problem in this country, just gun, gun, gun.”
In a brutal attack shortly before his arrest, police said, Brito entered a North Andover store wearing a dark, tight-fitting mask and asked the clerk whether anyone else was in the store. When she said no one was, he ordered her at gunpoint to go to a side room and take her clothes off, court documents state. Then Brito — listed as 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighing 145 pounds — put on a condom and raped her, the woman told police.
The victim told Brito there was about $500 in a money box under the counter, documents show, and he made off with the money and all of the scratch tickets from the counter. Before he left, he stuffed one of the victim’s shoes with $1 bills, documents show.
Police reviewed surveillance footage that “clearly” showed Brito entering the store holding a black gun, stealing the money and the scratch tickets and placing them inside his backpack, while the victim is shown naked from the waist down, reports state.
About 20 minutes later, two sharp-eyed state police troopers spotted Brito’s gray Audi with a New Hampshire license plate thought to be linked to the fatal shooting of Zangiband, according to state police spokesman David Procopio.
After pulling the car over, troopers ordered Brito to step out and placed him in handcuffs, Procopio said.
“The troopers then located a black semiautomatic handgun, loaded with a round in the chamber, in Brito’s right inside jacket pocket,” Procopio said in a statement, “and also located a loaded magazine in the left cargo pocket of his sweatpants, and a box of 9 millimeter ammunition in the right cargo pocket of his sweatpants.”
Brito stood out of sight behind a door in Peabody District Court yesterday. He pleaded not guilty to charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition, along with motor vehicle charges, stemming from the traffic stop. He has not been charged with murder.