“My mom! She’s dead I think! I don’t know! Please! Help me! Help me!”
Jurors in the Realtor to the Stars murder trial heard the wrenching 911 tape of victim Linda Stein’s daughter Mandy this afternoon.
Mandy is the first witness against her mother’s accused bludgeoner — young and pretty personal assistant Natavia Lowery. The daughter sat in the witness stand dressed in black and sobbing silently as the tape of her voice was played.
“My mom! My mom!” Mandy shrieks on the tape, her voice dissolving into the most pitiable and incoherent of whimpers.
It was the evening of October 30, 2007, and Mandy, a 35-year-old documentary film maker from Los Angeles, had just walked into Stein’s penthouse apartment at Fifth Avenue and 78th St.
Stein, 62, was a high-power residential Realtor who’s clientele included A-listers Madonna, Elton John, Calvin Klein and Angelina Jolie. Lowery, 28, had been working for Stein a mere four months — and had already robbed her of $30,000, sparking the fatal argument, prosecutors say.
At first, Mandy told jurors, she didn’t recognize the body that lay on the living room floor. The corpse’s torso and head were covered in a blue velour hoodie. The legs were awkwardly twisted. Below the head had collected a pool of black and red blood.
Mandy told jurors that when she realized it was her mother, she dove down, tried to shake the body, and found it was hard and cold.
Calling 911, she was almost too distraught to talk.
“Ma’am! Ma’am! Speak to me!” the 911 operator, a woman, urged. “You found your mother on the floor?”
“Send somebody! Send somebody! Send somebody!” Mandy is heard whimpering.
Then, her voice weakened further, she adds, “Please. Please. Please.”
Earlier today, during openings, a prosecutor described how Stein never had a chance when the murder weapon, never recovered, fell upon her. Stein suffered at least 10 skull- and vertebrae-crushing blows.
“Linda Stein not only didn’t fight back — she never even had an opportunity to shield herself,” said assistant district attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon.
Prosecutors link Lowery to the brutal murder by her detailed confession, her access to the apartment and what they say were her $30,000 in thefts from Stein’s accounts — the spark, they say, that ignited a fatal argument between boss and assistant.
Defense lawyers for the first time publicly admitted Lowery was indeed stealing from her boss. But they continued to say her confession was a lie coerced by cops during a 10-hour “interrogation.”
In past court appearances, Lowery’s family members, who vehemently protest her innocence, have shouted at Mandy in court — calling her the “real” murderer.
Yesterday, in openings, defense lawyer John Christie picked up on that theme ever so faintly, suggesting that Stein had made “many enemies” in her job — and that her daughters, Mandy and Samantha, were both in debt and stood to inherit upon their mother’s death.
Outside the jurors’ hearing, Illuzzi-Orbon complained about the insinuation to the trial judge, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers. The trial is expected to continue at least one month; Lowery is facing a possible life sentenced if convicted.