17-year-old confesses in brother’s killing
Shocking admission comes as he, mother appear in court to face robbery charges
The 17-year-old brother of a boy shot to death during his 14th birthday party reportedly confesses to the killing, according to a law enforcement source.
The 17-year-old brother of a boy shot to death during his 14th birthday party has reportedly confessed to the killing, according to a law enforcement source.
Just two days after the death of O’Cyrus Breaux, Messiah Breaux and his mother, Ellen, were arrested Wednesday morning in connection with an unrelated robbery weeks before the slaying, according to court documents.
Before the pair appeared in court early Thursday to face charges of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, they both confessed to the gunpoint heist, prosecutors said. But during questioning, the teen allegedly offered an even more shocking confession in his brother’s death.
On the morning of June 23, Ellen Breaux allegedly drove her oldest son and another person to an apartment complex on Cypress Station Drive. It was before 8 a.m. when Messiah and the third person allegedly jumped out of the red SUV and pointed their guns at a man who lived there, demanding his car keys and money.
Then, the duo bashed the man in the head with their pistols before hopping into his white Dodge pickup truck and fleeing the scene, prosecutors claim.
Afterward, police used the stolen truck’s GPS to track it back to a townhome in the 100 block of Goodson, where 14-yearold O’Cyrus would be shot three weeks later.
Surveillance video showed the Dodge and the red SUV parked in front of the house, and it also captured people believed to be the trio of suspects getting out of the vehicles and unloading property.
The mother and son are both being held in the Harris County Jail on $50,000 bail, records show. They do not yet have any attorneys listed in court records.
The Breauxs also named the third person allegedly involved,
who did not appear to have been arrested by Thursday morning. After the pair of arrests, the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office began probing evidence collected from the home for any possible connections to other robberies in the area.
Although deputies are continuing to probe the robbery case, Houston Police Department is heading up the homicide investigation.
Juliette Jackson, Ellen’s sister, said Wednesday she was not surprised by the robbery arrests of her sister and nephew. Although neither appear to have prior charges in Harris County, records show Ellen had a smattering of minor arrests in New Orleans, all before 2004.
The following year, the family moved to Houston in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But in 2007, they moved back — until a 2011 shooting wounded Ellen Breaux and killed her then-fiancé. Afterward, the family returned to the Houston area.
Initial reports indicated that it was an apparent stray bullet that killed the Aldine ISD middle school student in the early hours of Monday morning.
The teen was sitting outside in the driveway of the Greenspointarea home around 2 a.m. when a single shot ripped into his stomach.
No one else was injured, and none of the witnesses reported seeing the shooter, though police probed the possibility that the gunfire could have been connected to a nearby robbery call around the same time.
After the boy’s death, friends described him as funny and “chill.” His family said he was a good student and a bad dancer who loved R&B and football.
“The first time he got on a team he was 6 years old,” his aunt Naomi Breaux, Ellen’s twin sister, said the day after his death. “They used him as a secret weapon because he could run.”
The doting aunt described the teen as a big kid at heart.
“He was just the happiest child ever — so funny, so playful, so happy — a free spirit,” she said. “My younger kids, they just cling to him.”
The boy’s family said Thursday they were still working to pull together money for funeral services in New Orleans. A vigil in the Houston area is slated for next week.