It’s what Karyn would have wanted.
Friends and co-workers of tragically bludgeoned La Guardia HS teacher Karyn Kay attended her killer son’s latest Manhattan court appearance today — in hopes that he will be freed to a mental health facility.
Henry Wachtel, 19, has been jailed without bail since April, when he was caught on a 911 tape literally beating his mother to death in their Midtown apartment during a violent epileptic seizure.
“He was her life,” Phyllis Weber told reporters after the brief hearing, describing herself as Wachtel’s “godmother” and a close friend and fellow teacher to Kay.
“She would have never wanted him jailed for this,” said Weber, of Queens, calling the killing a horribly tragic accident.
“She would have been the first person here supporting him,” agreed another supporter who declined to give her name but described herself as a former Kay co-worker.
Kay had called 911 to report that her son was having a seizure; the tape continued to roll as she screamed, “Help! Help! He’s attacking me!” and as the boy sobbed, “Mommy! Mommy! Please don’t die!” after an audible struggle.
Defense lawyer Lloyd Epstein has repeatedly argued that the tape and Wachtel’s medical records demonstrate the teen was blacked out and flailing uncontrollably as he killed his mother.
Epstein and prosecutors have spent the summer negotiating Wachtel’s release from jail to a mental facility pending a final resolution of the charges, sources have told The Post.
“Any bail package would include his admission to a psych facility,” Epstein said after court. “This is causing him tremendous stress, tremendous anxiety,” he said.
“This is not a case where Henry intended to kill his mother,” he said. “He misses his mother. It’s very difficult.”
Some two dozen friends of Kay and Wachtel attended the brief hearing today, at which assistant district attorney Stuart Silberg asked for two more weeks for a possible agreement on Wachtel’s bail.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone set the next court date for August 29.