The Staten Island teen accused of beheading his mother’s boyfriend allegedly confirmed his little sister the mutilated physique — then requested if she needed their mom to stay.
“She mentioned, ‘Are you gonna damage mother?’ ” the suspect’s weeping mom, Alicia Zayas, mentioned of her 16-year-old daughter Bri’s encounter together with her blood-soaked son, Damien Hurstel, within the Monday horror.
“And he mentioned, ‘Would you like her to stay?’
“And he or she mentioned, ‘Sure, please.’
“He mentioned, ‘Okay, she’ll stay.’ ”
Bri then requested her brother if she might depart the blood-spattered lavatory the place, sources mentioned, the killer eliminated a few of Anthony Casalaspro’s mind with a spoon. Casalaspro was the mom’s live-in boyfriend.
“Are you gonna inform mother?” Damien then requested his sister.
“No,” she replied, based on a heartbroken Zayas, who spoke completely to The Put up Friday in a 30-minute sitdown within the workplace of her attorneys’ Mark Fonte and Louis Gelormino.
Bri fled, hid behind a yard shed and instantly phoned her mom.
“She known as me scared,” the 39-year-old Zayas recalled. “I might hear it in her voice. I mentioned, ‘Are you someplace secure?’
“She mentioned, ‘Damien killed Anthony, and he doesn’t have a head.’ ”
Cops mentioned Damien, 19, confessed to stabbing Casalaspro, 45, and sawing off his head contained in the household’s Cary Avenue dwelling in West Brighton. He faces expenses of second-degree homicide, manslaughter and legal possession of a weapon.
A photograph of the grisly scene exhibits the severed head mendacity subsequent to the corpse, shirtless and clad in purple briefs, inside a walk-in bathe. On the ground close by is a bowl and a noticed. A plastic sauce ladle lies on the sufferer’s chest, whereas the deal with of a silver-colored spoon stands proud of the dismembered cranium.
A determined, panicked Zayas raced dwelling to seek out Bri. Earlier than she rushed into the home, the place the entrance door was huge open, she informed her daughter, “When you don’t hear from me in two minutes, it is advisable name 911. Inform them to come back rapidly.”
The terrified mother walked upstairs together with her keys in her hand and entered her household’s house.
“There’s blood in every single place,” she recalled. Damien was within the kitchen, sporting a disturbing expression.
“His eyes appeared completely different,” she recalled. “He has mild eyes. The eyes appeared darkish. It appeared bizarre. I mentioned ‘Damien, what’s occurring? What’s flawed, honey? What are you doing?’ ”
“Cleansing,” Damien informed his mom flatly, “as if he’s cleansing dishes, prefer it’s regular.”
She then requested the place Casalaspro was and her son mentioned he was within the lavatory. However “you don’t need to go in there,’” he chillingly warned.
“I mentioned, ‘Effectively, Damien, I’ve to go in there. I’ve to see Anthony.’ ”
The frightened mother slowly moved towards the lavatory — too scared to show her again to her son.
She peered on the unimaginable bloodshed and started to scream, “Why? Why? Why? Why? He loves you. Why would you do that?’”
She known as 911.
“Come fast,” she informed the dispatcher. “My son killed my boyfriend.
“They mentioned, ‘Can he be saved? … How are you aware he’s lifeless?’
“I mentioned, ‘He has no head.’ ”
Zayas then ran outdoors and waited for police, begging the coming officers to not damage her son.
The mom insists this tragedy was preventable if the medical system had labored for her a number of mentally sick son.
Medical doctors modified her son’s medicines in January with out notifying her, mentioned Zayas, who claimed Damien went downhill after the swap.
She solely came upon when a CVS pharmacist identified that Damien wanted to be weaned slowly off his earlier medicine, the antipsychotic drug Depakote.
She was by no means informed what new meds he was presupposed to be taking. Her son’s psychiatrist wouldn’t talk about therapy as a result of Damien was now a authorized grownup.
“Why wouldn’t they inform us?” mentioned Zayas. “They’re docs. I’m positive they knew.”
Zayas insisted Casalaspro was not abusive — however mentioned her son might be violent. He beat her final 12 months, on her birthday, when she requested him to wash the kitchen, she mentioned.
Damien began having psychological well being points when he was solely 6 — after his father went to jail, she mentioned. He started hallucinating at age 13 — after being sexually abused by one other scholar at a college in Queens, mentioned Zayas, who declined to present extra particulars.
He was recognized with PTSD and main despair, she mentioned. He noticed “shadow figures, very disturbing photos, nearly like horror films,” she mentioned. He would draw them for her.
That’s when he was first prescribed antipsychotics.
Damien tried to kill himself twice, and was hospitalized twice, however by 14 was secure and on medicine, she mentioned.
“I’m simply devastated,” she mentioned. “My son wasn’t like this earlier than. He was a superb boy. One thing is critically flawed with him.”
When he was in highschool, she was capable of maintain monitor of his docs and medicines. However regardless of her greatest efforts, she mentioned she was minimize out of the equation as soon as he graduated in January and went into an grownup mental-health program.
She attended his first two appointments with a brand new psychiatrist, however then her son informed her she couldn’t come anymore.
“I didn’t even know what docs he was going to,” the mother mentioned. “I don’t even know if he was going to all of the appointments. Each morning I remind him to take his medicines. He mentioned he was taking it.”
“We ask the general public to with maintain judgment,” mentioned Gelormino. “Damien Hurstel is a particularly troubled younger man with an extended documented historical past of psychological well being points. Our agency is aggressively attempting pursue his psychiatric historical past so we are able to get an entire image of the circumstances main up this tragedy.”
She and Casalaspro, a metropolis Sanitation employee, have been within the course of of shopping for a house not removed from the place they lived.
“I’m heartbroken,” she mentioned. “Anthony was an incredible man. He was serving to me increase my children. He didn’t have to do this.”
