Ashley Southall and Edgar Sandoval

Now police have accused him of committing a gruesome murder. On Sunday morning, police arrested Brown, 34, and charged him with second-degree murder, attempted murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon after they said he stabbed his ex-girlfriend and killed her pregnant friend over the weekend in the Bushwick Houses, a public housing complex in Brooklyn.

Investigators found a bloody ax in the building’s trash compactor that the police said they believed Brown used in the attack. The police will conduct more tests on the ax to confirm whether it is the murder weapon.

Police said Brown stabbed the women in the apartment of his former girlfriend, Angela Valle, where he sometimes stayed. She was also wounded in the attack. An Uber driver Valle had hailed afterward saw her bleeding and called police. The responding officers found Savannah Rivera, 20, in her friend’s apartment, partially decapitated with several fingers severed, police said.

Valle’s 4-year-old daughter was found unharmed in a bedroom, officials said.

Brown surrendered to police Saturday and was admitted Sunday to a hospital where he was scheduled to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, according to police. He could not be reached for comment, and it was unclear whether he had a lawyer.

Brown’s violent history includes a conviction for attempted murder and an arrest in 2017 on charges of attempting to strangle a former girlfriend, according to public records. He pleaded guilty to shooting another man in 2002, when he was 17.

In an interview Saturday before his arrest, Brown told a local television station, Pix11, that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and said he did not remember attacking the women earlier that day. After the interview, Brown contacted detectives and arranged to meet them in Manhattan, police said. They drove him back to the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, where he was arrested.

Valle remained in the hospital in serious condition Sunday. As of Sunday evening, investigators had not interviewed her or Brown and were still trying to determine a motive for the fatal attack.

Rivera’s family said she was two months pregnant. Her aunt, Margaret Cruz, held back tears as she called for the killer to pay with his life.

“He’s a monster,” Cruz said. “She didn’t have to die like that. It’s hard. Every time I think about it, I want to cry. I want to go over there and squeeze him, ‘Tell me, why? Why would you do this to her?’”

— A Violent Past

A woman who lives on the floor below Valle’s apartment said she constantly heard Brown and Valle fighting and screaming, and she had seen the police visit the apartment in March.

“He seemed strange,” the downstairs neighbor said, who did not want her name used out of fear for her safety. “I saw him punching a wall once.”

Before Sunday, Brown had been arrested 13 times, according to public records. He pleaded guilty to attempted murder in 2003, after a witness told police she saw him shoot someone in the chest in a Williamsburg park in August 2002, according to state prison records and a criminal complaint. He served about seven years in prison for the shooting, and afterhis release in 2009, returned to prison three times for parole violations, according to corrections records.

The 23-year-old woman involved in the 2017 choking attack said she had been arguing with Brown when he had threatened to stab her, according to police. He choked her and she passed out, she told police, and when she regained consciousness, she had a cut on her head that required 25 stitches.

The ax that police recovered Saturday was purchased at the Florama Hardware store a few blocks from where the attack unfolded, according to the store’s manager, Udi Amrussi, who said in a telephone interview that he immediately recognized the store’s price tag affixed to the 6-inch blade when investigators showed it to him.

Amrussi said the store had sold an ax about two weeks ago to a man who came in and asked if the blade could be sharpened. He said he did not know if the man was Brown and police did not show him a photo of the suspect.

“I'm quite shocked that anybody would use that to murder someone, because that is a horrible thing to do,” he said.

Store workers were unable to find a credit-card record of the purchase, suggesting it was paid in cash, he said. Without a record to show the date and time of the purchase, it would take investigators days to sift through the store’s surveillance footage to find video showing who bought it, he said.

Unlike knives, axes are sold over the counter, he said. Buyers only need to show an ID indicating they are 21 or older to purchase one.

— ‘We Want Justice for Two’

On Easter Sunday, Rivera’s family gathered in the Ten Eyck Street public housing complex in Williamsburg where she grew up. Her aunt, Margaret Cruz, said they knew little about Brown except that Rivera had referred to him as “that fool.”

Rivera had recently learned she was pregnant and was looking forward to the birth of her second child, Cruz said.

“He took two lives, not just hers,” she said. “It was her and her baby she had in her womb,” she said. “We want justice for two.”

Rivera lived in a Ten Eyck Street apartment with her grandmother and cousin, and had been spending the weekend with Valle. She had lived her whole life at the complex, where her grandmother had raised her, according to relatives.

Cruz said she suspected her niece had been killed trying to defend her friend, and said her killer should pay with his life. She wondered if Rivera suffered. Her 4-year-old son, Sebastian Rodriguez, still doesn’t know his mother died.

“At night when he is going to bed he asks, ‘Where is Mom?’” Cruz said. “We tell him she went to the store. He is too young to know. Maybe when he’s older. He ruined his life, too.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="ab99632a-de15-3191-ad38-bb8652a4b17e" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/nyregion/brooklyn-ax-murderer.html">The New York Times</a>.

A Pregnant Victim, a Grisly Murder and a Suspect Called 'Grim Creepa'

NEW YORK — Online, Jerry Brown adopted the persona of a killer, baptizing himself the “Grim Creepa” on Facebook. His former girlfriend referred to him affectionately on the site as “Mr. 187” — a slang term for murder derived from California’s penal code. Offline, he earned a reputation for violence with 13 prior arrests and a stint in prison for attempted murder.

A pregnant victim, a grisly murder and a suspect called 'Grim Creepa'

Police said Brown stabbed the women in the apartment of his former girlfriend, Angela Valle, where he sometimes stayed. She was also wounded in the attack. An Uber driver Valle had hailed saw her bleeding and called police. The responding officers found Savannah Rivera, 20, in her friend’s apartment, partially decapitated with several fingers severed, police said.

In an interview Saturday before his arrest, Brown told television statio, Pix11 that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and said he did not remember attacking the women earlier that day. After the interview, Brown contacted detectives and arranged to meet them in Manhattan, police said. They drove him back to the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg, where he was arrested.

Valle remained in the hospital in serious condition Sunday. As of Sunday evening, investigators had not interviewed her or Brown and were still trying to determine a motive for the attack.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/nyregion/brooklyn-ax-murderer.html" id="ab99632a-de15-3191-ad38-bb8652a4b17e">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — Online, Jerry Brown adopted the persona of a killer, baptizing himself the “Grim Creepa” on Facebook. Offline, he earned a reputation for violence with 13 arrests and a stint in prison for attempted murder.

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Ashley Southall and Edgar Sandoval

Articles written by the author

A pregnant victim, a grisly murder and a suspect called 'Grim Creepa'

A Pregnant Victim, a Grisly Murder and a Suspect Called 'Grim Creepa'