NYPD: 'Ugly Betty' actor killed mom with sword

NEW YORK (AP) - Neighbors told reporters they could hear screams outside and inside the building in the Prospect Heights neighborhood...

TheGrio Staff

Nov 24, 2010

NEW YORK (AP) — An actor who once had a small part on the TV comedy “Ugly Betty” was charged Tuesday with stabbing his mother to death with a 3-foot (1-meter) sword in her home after a fight, police said.

Officers responding to a call of a family dispute found 55-year-old Yannick Brea kneeling in the bathroom of her Brooklyn apartment at about 2:20 a.m. She had cuts to her head and was pronounced dead at the scene, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

“In a bedroom was her son … with a 3-foot sword,” Kelly said.

The son, Michael Brea, 31, was arrested on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He was undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at Kings County Hospital, and police didn’t know if he had an attorney. No phone number was listed at the address provided by police.

There had been a loud fight, Kelly said, but he didn’t know what caused the altercation.

Neighbors told reporters they could hear screams outside and inside the building in the Prospect Heights neighborhood.

“I heard this wild screaming,” Gregory Clare, who lived in the building, told the Daily News of New York. He said he heard screams of ”’Repent, repent, sinner, sinner,’ over and over again,” and ”’You never accepted Jesus.’”

Police also said a Bible was found in the apartment, but Kelly wasn’t sure where.

Michael Brea has no prior arrests, and Kelly was not sure if he had a psychiatric history. No previous domestic violence incidents had been reported at the home, police said.

Brea had small roles in ABC’s now-canceled show “Ugly Betty” and the movie “Step Up 3D.”