"I didn't kill her. I killed the demon insider her. So be it. It was the work of God."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Michael Brea, bit-part 'Ugly Betty' actor, says, 'I didn't kill her. I killed the demon insider her'

BY Matthew Lysiak
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, November 26th 2010, 4:00 AM



Michael Brea says he killed his mom Yannick Brea with a sword after she asked him to pour water from a pot in which she was cooking chickens in.

An unhinged actor Thursday calmly described hacking his beloved mother to death with a sword because he believed a demon had taken hold of her soul.

"I didn't kill her. I killed the demon inside her," Michael Brea said in a chilling hourlong interview with the Daily News in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital.

When told his mother, Yannick Brea, 55, had died in the grisly assault early Tuesday, Michael was unrepentant.

"So be it. It was the work of God," he said.

Speaking with white-hot intensity and unflinching confidence, Brea described a shadowy descent into a world filled with Masonic symbolism and black magic beginning late Sunday when he snapped awake.

"I was sleeping in my bedroom. God came above my bed and reached his arm to me," said Brea, wearing a light-blue prison jumpsuit and slippers. He told his tale while sitting unhandcuffed on a blue chair behind a wood table.

"I said, 'God, is my time on earth over?' I heard a voice say, 'Yes Michael, today is your last day.' I asked if I could say goodbye to my family."

[hobbit709]

1. Gotta watch out for the demon chicken broth

Religion and mental instability are never a good mix.

[sandyj999]

3. And there's so much of it now.

Not chicken soup but religious people with problems.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. schizophrenia.

[Warpy]

4. Yeah, you wonder why nobody picked up on it before he killed

Most schizophrenics live lives of quiet terror. The ones who are the most religious make sense of the jumble of voices and visions by calling them angels and demons. The non religious call them aliens and government agents. It's a horrible disease.

It's a pity nobody got this guy some drugs before it was too late. It will be a pity if they put him on drugs now and he realizes what he's done.

Of course, part of it is an overly narrow definition of "danger to oneself or others" which means that few can be brought in involuntarily to get help unless they're found with weapons in their hands. That guarantees it will be too late in too many cases.

[kestrel91316]

5. My mom was of the "aliens/ government agents" variety.

[burnsei sensei]

6. I was convinced by the nature of the attack

that it had to do with mental illness and a delusion of some sort.
This is tragic.

[dddem]

8. The article doesn't say how old he is

Often the symptoms don't appear until a person's late teens or early 20's. I also wonder why no one tried to help him, unless his family knew, and was too ashamed to try to get help for him. Sadly, that's still an issue for many. People think that somehow mental illness has to be someones "fault", and to avoid being held responsible, don't seek treatment. If your child had diabetes or asthma, you'd get them the meds they need, but for some reason, people don't think of illnesses of the mind as real illnesses. Tragic.

[prc73450]

7. what a crazy man