A 55-year-old woman was murdered with a sword this morning in Brooklyn, and WPIX-11 in New York is reporting that the assailant was 31-year-old aspiring actor Michael Brea and the victim was his mother, Yanick. Brea had a few small acting credits, including an appearance on Ugly Betty. A spokesperson for the New York Police Department was not yet revealing the names of the people involved, but would confirm that a sword was used in a murder that took place at 2 a.m. at 501 Park Place in Prospect Heights. Records indicate that Brea’s mother lived in Apartment 2 at that address.
Nov 23
2010
12:39 PM ET
Michael Brea, Brooklyn actor, kills mother with samurai sword: report
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Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to watch Kurosawa films!
A woman is dead, and you think this is funny! You should have declared that you were FIRST, and look less like an idiot.
People get murdered each day, do you mourn them all?
Get over yourself fgh. Wah.
She’s been warned by Jack Nicholson!
Oh boo hoo!
Waahhh! Get over it!
To FGH, Give Nate a break, will you?!! People die all the time, all over the world. Yes, it is tragic, but whether we like it or not, life goes on. Everyone deals with death differently so spare all of us your self-righteous crap!
I’ll have to remember to take death a little more lightly from now on. By all of your accounts it’s no big deal and hey, let’s say that the next time one of your loved one’s dies we all show up to have a little, “who really cares if their gone” party right outside of the funeral home? This is what is so wrong with society these days, the level of respect for death is just non-existent. This is a pretty messed up generation. Man, we are in serious trouble…
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please lighten up..u don’t know these people and the best humor is derived from tragedy…i thought the comment was witty…do not assume intentions or motives, u r not a mind reader…wait until u read my comment…with any luck your head will explode…now rhat’s entertainment….
This is how high profile deaths always work. Ask any comedian. Immediately after the event people make jokes about it, until the stories of their families and backstory start to emerge and people feel uncomfortable laughing at their pain. Then there’s a period when everyone who makes a joke about it is an insensitive jerk. Then time passes and it becomes okay to make jokes about it, but as the event is old hat, if you do make jokes about it you’re behind the times. Then it enters the historical record, gets largely forgotten, and becomes a good story to pull out at dinnerparties by people who read about it in a “top ten weird ways to die” blog post somewhere. At said dinner parties, reactions will range from “God how awful. Just imagine!” to “some people just shouldn’t be allowed to watch Kurasawa films.”
Random Cop: “This women was killed with a sword”
Horatio: “Looks like someone…
*Puts on glasses*
“…just watched ‘The Last Samurai”
YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Random Cop: “This woman was killed with a sword”
Horatio: “Looks like someone….
*Puts on glasses*
“…..couldn’t hack it”
YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Random Cop: “This women was killed with a sword”
Horatio: “Looks like someone…
*Puts on glasses
“is chopped suey”
*groan*
David Caruso is an idiot. This isn’t a story about the plot of a TV show. It’s about a real human being that was murdered. Have some compassion.
This is a comments section. A place where the disconnected, callous and childish perpetuate.
Now Now Michael their is no reason to lose your head over this.
YYYYYEAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
David Caruso wins.
I have to admit, that was pretty damn hilarious. LoL.
How crude and uncaring of you. A woman was killed with a sword. Imagine if it was your mother
If it were my mother I would be celebrating!
If it had been his mother, he’d be part of this psychologically malfunctioning family – usually mothers are not angels in these cases. It does seem to me that the real story is what did she do to deserve this, in the serious sense. No one randomly kills their own parent.
D. Caruso……Funny Stuf!!…I know, I know…it’s no laughing matter…but my wife and I do the H. Caine bit all the time….too f’in funny…
I see he used a sword…..I wonder if she had an Axe to grind.
YYYYEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!
@ BakingPan:
Really??? You think ANYONE deserves to be killed like that, if it’s not out of self-defense? Whether she was a good mother or not is irrelevant to the story, that does NOT mean that she deserved to be murdered by her own son! God, your comment makes me wonder what kind of upbringing YOU’VE had!
Looks like he made the cut.
who in the world is michael brea? i couldn’t find him on imdb…
my thoughts exactly. i saw his picture on a fox news report and was like who the hell is this?
Aspiring actor = waiter
“Ugly Betty actor”??? Then howcome there’s no reference to any actor by that name in IMDb? What was he? A glorified extra?
It’s basically false advertising…he wasn’t even a glorified extra…that’s just the only place someone might have glimpsed him. sad story though…
ugh, shame on EW for putting Ugly Betty in the title, just so that the article receives hits.
TVGuide.com did the same exact thing.
So did MSN. But MSN actually said Ugly Betty actor, and I was shocked.
That’s low-rent reporting, EW.
Shame on you, Jeff Labrecque, and the editors for allowing that kind of TMZ-ish reporting in your magazine.
He has been reported as the owner of a Subway sandwich shop. That’s not as sensational as playing up that he was once an extra in a TV show. Really sleazy reporting.
He was actually the carver for the caterer.
WTF.
Maybe this should read Ugly Betty Extra instead of Actor. I don’t think he had any substantial part.
According to the website BelFilm.com, he’s part was listed as “Patron.” Did he even have a line?
Wasn’t Parson the fake gay guy who had a thing with Amanda? The one with the coconut shell jackets.
I have watched every episode of Ugly Betty, I don’t recall ever seeing this guy. His part may have been very small, therefore it is misleading to call him an Ugly Betty “actor.”
I don’t know what is more sad – the fact that this woman was killed with a samurai sword by her son, or the fact that you’ve seen every episode of Ugly Betty.
Either way, it’s a crazy world we’re livin in these days.
Sad that he was deranged enough to kill his own mother and sad that you felt it necessary to degrade someone who liked “Ugly Betty”. Yes, scary world indeed
Actually that’s what the story said. A very small role and that had a credit in it.
Yep I was trying soooo hard to figure what he played. He did play a guy intrested in Amanda or pretending to be and it turned out he was attracted to Amanda’s partner in crime. What is the other gay dudes name? The tall skinny cute blondish guy…?
Good lord – I hope they don’t mean Michael URIE!
That was my first thought, Melinda. I was thinking “The assistant?!?” Glad it wasn’t him.
The headline is misleading, but that’s the point; to get the reader to look at it. “Unknown actor kills mother with samurai sword” just doesn’t garner enough attention, I guess. No matter who he is, it’s incredibly sad.
why did i at first think it was the curly haired kid that played Mark?
Because we were supposed to think that this actor was somebody we were more familiar with so it would get more attention. I thought only trashy rag magazines were guilty of that sort of thing. I’m guessing that whoever is behind this (headline) is trying to dreg up more publicity for the actual murderer instead of having sympathy for the victim.
I was thinking Urie too. Sad regardless though.
And reference to Christian conservatives/tea party activists in 3,2,1…
Yeah if he was a random extra I don’t see the importance of this beyond the fact it was a sword. Not even being on IMDB is the real kicker
Not to make light of this, but I misread the headline as Michael Cera, which made me think of the Arrested Development episode in which he made the light sabre video. Seriously, though, this is a very disturbing crime.
Other papers are reporting that the cops REFUSED to break down the door, even though the woman was pleading for her life. They waited until they knew for sure that she was dead, first.
I just saw Michael and Ugly Betty and I was like: It’s impossible, Michael Urie doesn’t look like a killer!
All news outlets are headlining this as “Ugly Betty actor”. The guy isn’t even on IMDB–my friend has been in tiny parts in small films and she’s on there. I’ve seen every episode and don’t know him. If you aren’t on IMDB then you probably didn’t even have a line. Why not just “actor”? I mean, really–so lame to drag Ugly Betty into this, when he was an extra. So dumb.