A Brooklyn woman decapitated her neighbor, a mother of four, as she begged for her life — and scattered the body parts across two Long Island counties, authorities said Thursday.
“No, Lee! No, Lee! What you doing? Oh no! Oh no! . . . I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” were the last words that Chinelle LaToya Thompson Browne cried out to Leah Cuevas, 42, during a July 5 fight over the rent, according to prosecutors.
The next thing their Brownsville neighbors heard were blood-curdling screams — as Cuevas hacked off Browne’s head with “a sharp instrument,” prosecutors said.
Cuevas then dismembered Browne, a Guyanese immigrant, and spread her limbs and torso across Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Cuevas was arrested Wednesday and dragged before a judge Thursday at the First District Court in Central Islip, where her attorney entered a plea of not guilty.
Judge G. Ann Spelman ordered that Cuevas be remanded without bail, saying she was charged with “the worst conduct that humans can be capable of.”
Prosecutors believe Cuevas was “pretending to be the landlord” after the building’s real owner passed away last year — though she has not been charged with defrauding any tenants.
She collected rent despite the building’s lack of hot water and scant electricity — and Browne finally got fed up and decided to stop paying.
She wanted to move out of the dilapidated Sumpter Street building — and Cuevas became furious.
Things got so bad that on the night before the slaying, the NYPD had to separate the two women.
The following night, Cuevas approached Browne in her apartment and tried to give her one last chance to pay up.
When she refused, Cuevas attacked her, stabbing her repeatedly in the throat and chest until she decapitated Browne.
Browne’s dismembered torso was discovered in a wooded lot near the Fire Island ferry terminal in Bay Shore on July 9, authorities said. Her severed legs were found nearby.
Days later, the woman’s arms were found in separate yards in Hempstead, about 25 miles west of Bay Shore, and her severed head was discovered at another home on July 17, the prosecutor said.
Browne’s husband, Dale Browne, said his wife moved to New York about a year ago and worked in a Manhattan department store.
He planned to move from Guyana to New York with their four children after he got his paperwork completed.
“When the prosecutor described the words that she screamed out, I can hear those words,” he told reporters. “It’s animalistic. It’s a beast that did this.”
Filed under Brooklyn , Long Island , Roommates
Descansa en Paz………very sad!
What a wicked hartless
sentence dat demon tuh death penalty nuh waste de likkle tax money wi pay a feed thousand a dem already wid pon wan more
Her kids are beautiful…look at her lil pudding twin babies..some form ah justice must be served, court or street..
Real wickeder dat…dem fi do ar di same ting!!!!
Met mi hear say di mouse about fi get a restraining order slap pon him
will update later a lie dem a tell
Oh…bwoy dats why mi only get mi news from dis site or from mi own two yeye lol
OMG..and all her babies are young
May God bless her babies abundantly, cover them with his blood& never let them not feel loved.. May her soul rest in eternal peace..Amen
those babies must be missing dem mom. people need fah wake up and think before dem mek anger drive dem to dis point. nothing is worth killing ova.
Good God!!! I hope NYC has d death penalty n women are not excluded. Har neck fi pap or slow death by lethal injection meck him gasp fi hours before she dead. Wicked bitch afta shi capture di ppl dem place
Beautiful kids god bless the mon . Praying for the kids
Wicked! #deathfihar
Father God punish this woman for the wrong she has done!
Dem fi chop up dat wicked raass and men she bleed out, wicked f**ka
Nice kids now have to grow without a mom and read bout this fakery later on in life
And di craziest part of dis mess is dat di killer is not even di true landlord. Money hunger a tell you.
What justice can truly be served in dis? if a death penalty di killer’s death will be easier, and she wont be dismembered, her body will get more dignity. The four childless children and husband’s pain will not be diminished. No true justice can be served, the best you hope for is dat a guilty conscience stay wid di killa fi di rest of her days, every day.
May God keep us from evil.
how she one suh brave… after she kil the woman she chop her up, but the story is twisted because if people hear her crying for help, why wasn’t the police called.. how did she manage to chop her up and where was everyone…
Oh goshi know I’m very late but the murderer is my brother in law ex girlfriend. She’s Trinidadian