Bitter Thanksgiving for family of three women murdered by “favorite grandson” in New York
For the first time since Hyacinth Brown Johnson emigrated from her native Jamaica, the entire family would celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas this year at her home on 182nd Street in Queens. after their children Robert Meghoo and Latoya Gordon moved to New York.
But instead the family is mourning the triple homicide of Brown Johnson (65), his daughter Gordon (47) and his disabled stepdaughter Patrice Johnson (26). All three were found dead with stab wounds on Friday and the next day their 22-year-old grandson Jabari Burrell was arrested in Virginia on suspicion of the violent crime. Although he has not been formally charged, police say he himself confessed to the murders.
Still The motive for the triple crime is unknown. said NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig. A home health care worker found the three bodies, all with multiple head and neck injuries, police said. Grandma Brown Johnson had also been stabbed in the back.
The worker came to help care for Johnson, who was bedridden and disabled. Police said the victims were killed early Friday while sleeping in two bedrooms and that Gordon had come home from a late night shift. at the nearby JFK airport. The detectives recovered a kitchen knife in a bathroom in the house.
The young suspect was arrested covered in blood on the side of Interstate 95 in Virginia after he his grandmother’s car with which he fled run out of gas, authorities said.
Virginia State Police detained him and Burrell confessed to the triple homicide after waiving his extradition rights, a law enforcement source said. Burrell lived in the house in the Springfield Garden neighborhood with his grandmother.
Family members described him as nonviolent and Brown Johnson’s favorite among his eight grandchildren. That’s why they said the idea that Burrell committed the triple murder was especially shocking given the close relationship she had with her grandmother. In the house there are still family photos of the suspect that confirm this close link. “The Jabari who did that, that’s not the Jabari I know,” his cousin Kimone Meghoo told the Daily News. “He is not a violent person.”
At the time of the crime, the refrigerator in Brown Johnson’s kitchen was stocked with food for the big gathering on Thursday, his heartbroken son Robert said. “This is not normal… There are no words.” According to him, there has been few family feuds over the years.
But in May Burrell left his grandmother’s house and The NYPD reported him as a missing person. after family members reported that he had left his phone behind. It is not clear when she returned or under what conditions.
This year there has been various multiple crimes committed by close relatives of the victims in New York: in September three children drowned in Coney Island (Brooklyn) and their mother, a woman with a history of mental problems, was arrested as a suspect. And in October, a suicide bomber shot his parents and his wife to death and then turned the gun on himself in Newstead, NY.
In a similar case, in July a Hispanic mother killed her three children and then committed suicide in Connecticut.
All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
I looked for help
- Call to 1.888.NYCWELL (1.888.692.9355).
- Send the text message “WELL” a 65173.
- Check information in https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/
