GRIEVING &
Kin want answers in dismember death
IF BRANDY ODOM was in trouble, she never told anyone about it.
The 26-year-old woman didn’t mention anything to her aunt, Robin Fields, when she texted on March 8 with the news she would be starting cosmetology school soon.
She didn’t say a word four days later to one of her best friends, Dawnette Thomas, when Odom called to wish her a happy birthday.
In fact, things seemed to be looking up as Easter approached. Odom’s mother, Nicole, said she received a letter from the NYPD asking if her daughter still wanted to become a school safety agent.
“I told her, ‘I’m just so proud of you, good luck,’” Nicole, 45, quietly recalled on a recent Tuesday. “And she said, ‘Thank you, Mommy, I love you.’” But her daughter never responded to the letter. On April 9, Brandy Odom’s body was found hacked to pieces and scattered across Canarsie Park in Brooklyn.
Since the gruesome discovery — as city officials push for a speedy investigation and the hashtag #JusticeForBrandy sprang up on social media — family and friends have gathered at the park several times to demand answers.
Police have yet to officially declare Odom’s death a homicide — although they are investigating it as one, officials said.
Detectives suspect Odom was killed somewhere else before her killer dismembered her and dumped her limbless torso in the forest, according to sources.
A serrated blade pulled from a garbage can about 50 feet from where Odom’s head and naked torso were found may have been used to cut her up.
In the hunt for Odom’s killer, cops hope to also find the answer to the most haunting question about her grotesque death: Why?
Brandy Odom was never one to share much about herself. Born Jan. 8, 1992, she grew up in BedfordStuyvesant, as a child of few words, spending afternoons playing with dolls or watching cartoons.
“If it was really serious, then she would express herself,” Odom’s older sister, Aisha, 27, said. “But otherwise she was quiet. She was really, really quiet.”
It wasn’t that Odom was a timid girl. She just preferred to handle things on her own.
Perhaps she was taking a cue from her mother, who raised three daughters alone after Odom’s father, James Rodney Newman, passed away from a brain aneurysm when the girls were very young.
“I prayed every day to stay strong and raise them the best way that a mother could,” Nicole said.
“I always have the memory of when they were children and I would catch them in their rooms playing with their little tea sets,” she laughed. “I was very proud of them.”
As Odom grew older, so did her love for learning, even if there were hiccups along the way.
In 2010, she left Cobble Hill High School of American Studies without getting her degree. The next year, she enrolled in the Brooklyn Democracy Academy in Brownsville, a transfer school for overage and undercredited students determined to continue her education.
“Even if things were tough, she would always come to class with a smile on her face,” said Magdalena Guillen, Odom’s former history teacher at the academy.
“She would do it, despite everything. She was a really bright kid,” Guillen, 32, said.
In 2015, Odom enrolled in a 6-month program at the Iroquois Job Corps Center in upstate Medina to become a medical administrative assistant. She dreamed of helping people, especially children.
“She’d leave one school to do something, then she’d sign back up at another school to do something else,” Odom’s mother mused. “It just seems like school was never supposed to end for her.”
Yet as her ambitions blossomed, Odom never shed her silent demeanor. Friends described her as “sweet” and “humble” — but often closed off.
“Brandy was that person that never really talked to you about her problems. She would never go into detail,” Dawnette Thomas, 27, a fellow Job Corps graduate living in the Bronx, said.
“You never really knew when something was wrong with Brandy. She was always happy,” Cascia Cleveland, another classmate and Odom’s roommate from Syracuse, added. But there were some struggles. In 2012, Odom was arrested in East New York for loitering with suspicions of prostitution, according to police sources.
Her mother says Odom was never involved in any illegal activity. More recently, Odom became involved with a man living in Long IsA