MONSTER THEY KNEW
Home aide busted in break-in that killed 91-year-old
A BROOKLYN woman shopped and kept house for an elderly couple — and then, cops said, she sold them out.
A teary Suzette Troutman was busted Monday on murder and other charges in the home invasion robbery that led to the death of beloved 91-year-old grandfather Waldiman Thompson.
The once-trusted aide and alleged mastermind of the robbery is the second person arrested in the cruel daytime heist at the BedfordStuyvesant home Thompson shared with his 100-year-old wife, Ethlin. Troutman was hired about two years ago to help the couple with odd jobs, as well as shopping and housekeeping, but on Oct. 11, she helped herself, according to police and Ethlin Thompson’s brother.
With a toddler in tow that day, Troutman drove her nephew and another man to the Thompsons’ home, where thieves tied up the couple, took a paltry $5,000 and left Waldiman Thompson to die of a heart attack, authorities said.
Cops on Monday led the 45-year-old Troutman, her hands cuffed behind her, from the 81st Precinct stationhbouse, where she was charged with second-degree murder and two counts of assault and burglary.
Her hair pulled back in a bun, Troutman had nothing to say as she headed to court for her arraignment. She wore a denim jacket, blue jeans and a red shirt, and she kept her head down as she stifled sobs.
On Friday, Troutman’s nephew, Dwayne Blackwood, 27, was hit with the same charges.
Police said cell phone records placed Blackwood in the Thompsons’ Decatur St. brownstone. Ethlin Thompson managed to escape her home and call for help. Officers arrived to find him unconscious and facedown near the couple’s bedroom, with a blanket wrapped around his head and a pillow pressed into his face, police sources said. “For two years now, she would go by there and somehow check on them, now and then,” Ethlin Thompson’s brother, Garfield Bringle, said of Troutman. “I met her, talked to her. Looks are deceiving, you can’t see people’s true colors.” Prosecutors described her as the mastermind of the sick crime. “She took care of the Thompsons. She used her trust to betray them and commit this crime,” said Assistant District Attorney Bernarda Villalona. “The defendant is the key to planning this home invasion. She had the knowledge and the trust. She caused his death.”
Villalona said prosecutors had evidence of Troutman dropping off Blackwood and a second robber in a black Nissan Rogue. She brought a 3-year-old child along for the ride, she said.
“There’s video of a lock box. There’s video of them taking items out of the lock box and putting them in a trash bag,” Villalona said.
Troutman’s lawyer, Gregory Watts, denied that his client drove a Nissan Rogue and said none of the video footage shows evidence of her involvement in the robbery.
“She didn’t plan it. She didn’t direct it. She took care of the couple who were family to her,” he said. “She is innocent. Innocent, innocent. None of it’s true. The NYPD makes stuff up.”