Fatal love triangle
Man stabbed to death over girl in B’klyn ‘Friendly’ man busted in slash of 2-year-old boy
A man stabbed his Brooklyn neighbor to death in a bloody fight over a girl, authorities said Friday.
Michael Brabham, 28, is facing murder and weapons possession charges for knifing Raymond Bermudez to death in the second-floor hallway of their building on Bradford St. near Belmont Ave.
Bermudez, 39, was found sprawled out on the hallway floor with multiple stab wounds around 10:20 p.m. Wednesday.
“A girl was hollering ‘Murder! Murder!’ so I got dressed,” said one resident who wished not to be named. “(Bermudez) was bleeding to death like when you kill a lamb and I called 911.”
Medics rushed him to Brookdale Hospital, but he could not be saved.
Detectives quickly zeroed onto Brabham, who was arrested at 7 p.m. Thursday after he returned to the East New York building.
He confessed to police that he stabbed Bermudez three times “because the defendant (Brabham) was upset that the decedent (Bermudez) was with a girl over the defendant,” according to prosecutors at his Friday arraignment.
Brabham was ordered held without bail after Assistant District Attorney Joseph Rosovksy argued that he had “significant” out-of-state contact with the criminal justice system, specifically in Pennsylvania.
Neighbors said that Bermudez had been living in a first floor apartment for about a year. Brabham didn’t have his own apartment, but had been flopping at the homes of two friends who lived in the building.
Tenants described Bermudez as someone who didn’t go looking for trouble.
“He was calm and cool,” the neighbor said. “Someone stabbed him over a woman. A love triangle.”
Police have arrested a man they say slashed a 2-year-old boy in a stroller in Manhattan.
Anthony Gonzalez, 35, who lived just blocks away from the Morningside Heights attack, is facing assault and weapons-possession charges for slicing the tot above his eye during a bizarre exchange on W. 110th St. and Morningside Drive on Wednesday, cops said.
Gonzalez seemed friendly when he approached the boy and his 46-yearold baby-sitter, and acted as if he wanted to play with the child, sources said.
But when the baby-sitter turned away, Gonzalez slashed the tot just above his right eye and ran off.
The child was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside and required stitches to close the wound.
“My wife was horrified,” the boy’s father, who did not want to be identified, told WABC-TV. “My son is very nervous, also under stress.”
Cops released surveillance video of the slasher as he ran off. A Crime Stoppers tip led police to Gonzalez, and he was arrested Thursday.
His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Friday.