HOME-INVADE NIGHTMARE

Couple, 91 & 100, terrorized – hubby dies

A home invasion in Brooklyn turned deadly Wednesday — with a 91-year-old man dying in front of his 100-year-old wife after being hogtied by four thugs, cops said.

The couple, identified by relatives as Waldiman and Ethlin Thompson, were in their Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone when the crooks sneaked in and set upon them at about 3:30 p.m., police said.

The thugs threw a blanket over Ethlin and tied her up with a cord before doing the same to her husband.

They then rummaged through the apartment and fled, but police did not know if they took anything.

Ethlin somehow managed to free herself and alert authorities. A source told The Post that police believe Waldiman died sometime during the crime, but it wasn’t clear how.

One neighbor outside at the time of the incident told The Post he saw Ethlin moments after she managed to free herself.

“She came running out the house screaming,” said Paul Paterson. “This was the first time I ever saw her screaming. She said, ‘They robbed me and my husband and tied us up, they came in from the back. My husband laying there and might be dead.’ I said I can’t go in there because it would be a crime scene.”

Paterson recalled seeing rope burns on the Ethlin’s legs.

“She used my phone to call the police,” he said, describing her and her husband as a warm, loving couple.

“They were like a grandmother and grandfather to me,” Paterson said. “Everyone on this block knew them and loved them.”

Police found no evidence of a break-in, and are trying to determine exactly how the suspects — who were still at large early Thursday night — managed to make it inside.

Investigators are also looking into the possibility that the thugs knew their victims. Sources said the home invasion didn’t appear to be a random act, noting that the Thompsons were known to keep large amounts of money in their home.

Neighbors told The Post Ethlin is a retired nurse who previously worked with the mentally chal- lenged. The couple had immigrated to New York from Jamaica.

“She ran a home for people with advanced mental [handicaps] out of her house in the ’80s,” said one longtime neigh- bor, Tiffany Baptiste.

Waldiman’s niece, Karlene Rose, said Wednesday night that she last saw her uncle on Sunday when he came to visit her critically ill mother.

“[It] breaks my heart,” she said.