(Byron Smith)
IN CUSTODY: Derek Tudor, accused of killing his mom’s boyfriend, is escorted from a station house yesterday. (
)
A Queens man walked into a station house with his father — and announced that he had suffocated his mother’s boyfriend hours after the victim was found buried in their back yard.
Derek Tudor, 27, allegedly told cops Tuesday night that he killed retired mailman Frank Soucie, 60, on April 21.
Tudor was formally charged last night with murder.
“There was animosity between Frank and the kid,” said Debbie Webster, a neighbor of theirs in Ridgewood. “Sometimes, they would argue and [Tudor] would yell at [Soucie], ‘I’ll kill you!’ ”
Soucie’s disappearance sparked an extensive police search around his haunts, including casinos, a bird sanctuary and a West Virginia trailer home that he owned.
His body was found Tuesday afternoon, buried in a shallow grave in the garden behind his home, after a neighbor told cops Tudor had just tossed out a burned sleeping bag.
Cops also found a large bloodstained plastic storage bin, ammonia and gloves on the roof of the Putnam Avenue multifamily home where Tudor lived with his mom, Stephanie Verni, and Soucie.