An alleged matricidal maniac was ordered held without bail in Manhattan today, charged with fatally stabbing his mother in the chest and nearly fatally slashing and incinerating his brother in their East Harlem apartment Saturday afteroon.
Accused mom-murderer and arsonist David Elias, 31, was led from Manhattan Criminal Court to jail, staggering and swaying as if drugged in his handcuffs and leg chains. He wore a hospital gown, gym shorts and socks, replacements for his blood soaked sweater, pants and shoes.
Elias, 31, has confessed to the attack on his mother, Ruth Montano, 55, and his brother, William, 32, prosecutors said.
“This is a very serious case — one of the most serious crimes a defendant can commit,” assistant district attorney Shawn McMahon told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon in asking successfully for no bail.
“He attacked his brother with a kitchen knife,” the prosecutor told the judge. “He stabbed his mother at least twice in the chest.”
Elias then allegedly set fire to a couch in the living room, a fire that quickly spread, trapping the injured brother in a back bedroom, the prosecutor said.
As he left the building, which is on Park Avenue near 135th Street, “The defendant’s face was covered in blood,” as were his sweatshirt, sneakers, pants and shoes, the prosecutor said.
Mom Ruth Montano, 55, had asked her emotionally-disturbed son to leave the apartment as the family members argued, and died trying to save her other son as Elias stabbed him in the head and torso, a law enforcement source told The Post.
“The mother tried to stop him from stabbing the brother,” the source said. “That’s when she got killed.”
Elias, who has been treated for mental illness in the past and did not live at the mother’s home, was arrested soon after the attack as he walked in his blood-soaked clothes into 125th Street subway station on Lexington Avenue.