Tot kill susp ‘spiraled’: roommate
A man accused of beating his girlfriend’s 4-year-old son to death in Brooklyn had spiraled out of control in recent years, a roommate said Friday.
Jeremiah Johnson, 27, was sent for psychiatric evaluation after his arrest Sunday. Police charged him with murder, and he is expected to be arraigned at his hospital bed sometime next week.
Johnson is accused in the killing of his girlfriend’s son, Jaycee Eubanks, 4 (photo), who was found beaten to death Sunday in the Gowanus Houses panicked mother cops.
Johnson’s roommate, who asked not to be named, told The News Johnson met Jaycee’s mother six or seven months ago. Johnson lost his job as a janitor at NYCHA’s Baruch and Pitt Houses on the Lower East Side in February after he was accused of assaulting the mother of his children, the roommate, 25, said.
“He has two daughters with another woman, but he wasn’t allowed to see them,” said the roommate.
“He was falsely accused of brandishing a knife at his baby mama,” said the roommate. “They had a lot of arguments.” Johnson started to spiral out of control after his mother died this year and his father five years ago.
“He was down to his last dollar and trying to get his job back. He was under a lot of pressure. It just build up on him and he exploded.”
Johnson has 27 prior arrests including robbery, marijuana possessiona, aggravated harassment, burglary and violating orders of protection, cops said.
He has never faced prison time. Jaycee’s neighbors sought police at 5:35 a.m. Sunday after Jaycee’s 5-year-old brother ran to a neighbor for help as Jaycee was being assaulted.
Johnson had punched him in the back, the 5-year-old said, and afterward snarled to the boy that he shouldn’t tell what he had seen happen to Jaycee, neighbors said.
“He picked him up and he dropped him,” the boy told neighbors. “And he can’t breathe.”
The older brother was later taken in by city child protective workers.