Metro

Suspect in gay man’s murder boasted, ‘Yeah, I shot him in the head’: prosecutors

The bigoted ex-con accused with a hate crime for shooting dead a gay man in Greenwich Village laughed and boasted about the murder shortly after he was arrested, prosecutors said yesterday.

“Yeah, I shot him in the head,” sneered Elliot Morales, 33, while “laughing on the ground” when cops were handcuffing him for shooting Mark Carson, 32, early Saturday morning.

Morales today was held without bail on charges of second-degree murder as a hate crime, menacing and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, court records show.

Mark CarsonFacebook.

He is accused of harassing Carson and a pal while they were walking on Sixth Avenue near West Eighth Street around midnight on Saturday.

“Look at these f—-ts,” said Morales, who was accompanied by two friends, according to police.

“What are you, gay wrestlers?” he challenged Carson and his pal, who were wearing boots, cut-off shorts and tank tops.

Carson and his friend kept walking to avoid a confrontation, but Morales — whose pals left him before he turned violent — followed the duo and asked Carson, “Do you want to die here?”

Morales allegedly pulled out a silver Taurus .38-caliber revolver and blasted the man in the cheek. Carson died shortly after at Beth Israel Hospital.

In court today, Manhattan prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said authorities have footage of a crazed Morales spewing homophobic remarks at Annisa Restaurant staff and threatening to put a bullet through a bartender’s forehead if he called cops.

“Are you afraid?” he barked minutes before the alleged shooting. “Do you watch the news? Do you know what happened in Sandy Hook?’’

There has been an uptick in the number of anti-gay attacks plaguing the West Village and nearby neighborhoods in recent weeks, police records show. Saturday’s vicious murder brings to five the number of bias attacks reported in the city.

So far this year, anti-gay attacks are up an alarming 77 percent — spiking to 23 so far this year from 13 during the same period last year.

“It’s clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay — there’s no question about that,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters today. “There were derogatory remarks. The victim did nothing to antagonize or instigate the shooter. It was only done because the shooter believed him to be gay.”

Morales’ two pals have been questioned and released, and remain in cooperation with the police Kelly added.

Morales has six prior arrests, including attempted murder in 1998 and others for criminal possession of a weapon.

He’s served more than nine years in both city and state prisons.

Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley