SERIAL-SLAY FEAR
A 38-year-old man already suspected of one murder was busted Wednesday for a second — and there is “a great possibility’’ he may be a serial killer, an NYPD chief said.
Kwauhuru Govan — who allegedly struck in 2004 and 2005, both times in the month of February — went berserk as he was dragged into Brooklyn Supreme Court to be arraigned in the second slaying, claiming he had been framed and beaten by authorities.
“Is that what America has come to? Is that what President Trump will allow?” Govan yelled at the judge.
Govan was arrested in the gruesome cold-case murder of Rashawn Brazell (above, inset left), 19, a gay man whose dismembered body was found scattered across the city in 2005.
It was Govan’s second mur- der rap since November, when he was charged in the February 2004 slaying of 17-year-old Sharabia Thomas (inset above right). Govan was being held at Rikers in Thomas’ murder when he was arrested Wednesday in Brazell’s death.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce, asked by reporters Wednesday whether Govan could be a serial killer, replied, “There’s a great possibility that might be the case.
“We’re looking into other cases he might be involved in,” said Boyce, noting that Govan lived in Florida and California as well as Brooklyn.
A police source said: “There is a very serious case in California that he may be involved in.”
In court, Govan claimed that he was related to Brazell and denied that he could have been involved in that murder — because he’s no good at cutting things up.
“They’re framing me for my own cousin’s murder! I can’t even dissect a frog!” the suspect screamed.
A law-enforcement source said the suspect and the victim were not relatives, although Govan may have known Brazell because at the time of the slaying they lived near each other in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Brazell’s arms and legs and part of his torso were found in a blue plastic bag on subway tracks near Nostrand Avenue on Feb. 17, 2005, three days after he went missing.
Six days later, city transit workers discovered a bag containing Brazell’s waist and pelvis at a Greenpoint recycling plant. His head was never found.
Thomas’ naked, beaten body was found in a Bushwick alley hours after she left for school on Feb. 11, 2004.
As with Brazell and Govan, she lived on Gates Avenue.
As the cases languished, Govan went on to commit crimes such as burglary, sources said. He was in jail in Florida for armed robbery when the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad and the Brooklyn DA’s Forensic Science Unit finally linked him to Thomas through DNA found beneath her fingernails.
Then detectives discovered that a bag left on a subway platform near where Brazell’s limbs were found belonged to Govan — and it had Brazell’s blood on it, a law-enforcement source said.