NY Post- Tragic mom Yannick Brea fought for her life as her sword-wielding son chased her through their blood-soaked Brooklyn apartment, a look inside the crime scene shows.The inside of the front door and the front hallway leading to the rear bedrooms are splattered with blood, suggesting she’d tried to fall out the front door but could not.
Bedding and furniture in three of the apartment’s four bedrooms are blood-soaked, indicating that the 55-year-old victim was running for her life from room to room with her son Michael Brea in pursuit during the rampage.
Pools of blood covered the bathroom floor, where cops found her body in a kneeling position.
Family and friends said money woes and a stalled showbiz career likely pushed the stressed-out bit actor over the edge in the days before he hacked his mother to death during the bloody rampage in their Brooklyn home.
"Michael had many money problems and couldn’t pay his bills," his longtime friend and barber Sylvan Benoit said Wednesday. "I think this happened because of stress over money."
Brea, 31, had small roles in "Ugly Betty" and the movie "Step Up 3D" but was not working while living at home with his mother and twin brother Marcel.
He owned a Subway franchise on Broadway in Brooklyn in 2008, but the franchise was taken away by the parent company last year over performance and management problems. Subway had placed liens for unpaid rent of almost $20,000 on the restaurant.
Brea also owed American Express more than $13,000, and New York State was after him for about $2,500 in taxes, court records show.
Neighbor Clinton Clare said Michael Brea rarely worked after losing the Subway franchise, and had no car.
"His mother was supporting him, and he had to use his father’s car to get around," said Clare, one of the first to hear Yannick Brea’s bone-chilling screams about 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Dumond said the family believes Michael suffered a "mental breakdown." She said he went to bed early Monday night , refusing his mother’s offer of dinner, after complaining of "a terrible headache."
Hours later, he awoke neighbors in the four-story Prospect Heights apartment building by screaming Biblical passages and demanding that his terrified mother "Repent! Repent! Repent!" before slashing her repeatedly with the three-foot sword as she cried for help.
Cops eventually broke in, Tasered Brea and found his mother’s blood-soaked body kneeling in the bathroom.
Brea has been charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He remains under psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital.
