‘Never should have happened’: Police announce charges in stabbing that killed 11-year-old boy and injured his mother in Edgewater

Just one day after being released from prison, Crosetti Brand barged into the apartment of a pregnant woman he has terrorized for nearly two decades, stabbing her while she was on the phone with her mother, prosecutors alleged.

When her 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins, tried to help her, Brand stabbed him, killing the boy in front of his younger brother in their Edgewater home, prosecutors said.

Cook County prosecutors on Friday laid out their case against Brand, 37, whom a judge held detained — during a fraught and chaotic hearing that was paused when deputies escorted out members of Jayden’s family after a scuffle.

Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx earlier in the day announced the murder charges for Brand, who has a documented history of domestic violence against multiple women, including Jayden’s mother, who is expected to survive along with her unborn child.

The reason for Brand’s release from prison on Tuesday was not immediately clear.

Sobs broke out in the courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building as prosecutors relayed gruesome details in the slaying of the boy, whom a friend described as a graceful dancer with a passion for musical theater.

“Of the people that come through this courtroom, it’s hard to find someone who is more dangerous than this defendant,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Anne McCord Rodgers, asking Judge Maryam Ahmad to hold Brand in jail while he awaits trial.

On Wednesday morning, the woman was on the phone with her mother for a usual morning check-in and was about to leave to take her sons, Jayden and a 5-year-old, to school, McCord Rodgers said. As she unlocked the door to leave, Brand forced his way inside and attacked her in the apartment in the 5900 block of North Ravenswood Avenue, she said.

Her mother listened on the phone while she screamed and yelled “No C.O.,” referring to his nickname, McCord Rodgers said.

Jayden “attempted numerous times to help his mother” and was stabbed in the process, she said.

At one point, the woman locked herself in another room, McCord Rodgers said, and Brand kicked the door repeatedly. When she opened the door, Brand had fled the apartment and had taken her cellphone.

Jayden was lying on the floor, not moving, and the 5-year-old was injured on the couch, she said.

A neighbor across the hall heard screams and called her mother, who was downstairs, McCord Rodgers said. She came up, noticed the door was ajar and saw Jayden and his mother bleeding.

Surveillance video captured Brand leaving and throwing a silver item over a fence, a bloody knife that was later recovered, she said. He was also seen throwing the victim’s cellphone into a garbage can.

According to footage, he got on the Red Line at the Bryn Mawr station and exited at 47th Street, where his mother met him, prosecutors said. He was later arrested at home.

As Brand’s case was called in court Friday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, the courtroom erupted into chaos, briefly pausing proceedings.

One observer was handcuffed after lunging toward the front of the courtroom, and the judge ordered a large group out of the building.

“I don’t tolerate street behavior in my courtroom because that’s what that was,” Ahmad said.

The hearing then continued with a heavy presence from deputies lining the aisles.

Prosecutors said the woman, who was engaged to someone else, was in a romantic relationship with Brand more than 15 years ago. Brand has racked up multiple convictions for battering her, threatening her and her mother and violating orders of protections, court records show.

Shortly after the woman broke up with him in September 2006, Brand came to the home she shared with her mother, waved a gun at them and threatened them. At one point, he fired the gun in their hallway before fleeing, according to a motion filed by prosecutors in an unrelated case seeking to admit past crimes.

Despite that order of protection, Brand allegedly continued to harass them over the next two years: He allegedly threw rocks at their windows and called them repeatedly. Brand approached the girl at her high school and tried to grab her twice over the following year, the motion said.

A full two years after the breakup, he allegedly punched her in the head at a bus stop while yelling about her dating other men, the motion said.

Brand also has convictions for battering other women. In 2013, Brand pleaded guilty to charges of domestic battery for punching a woman, who had recently ended a relationship with him, hard enough to knock her unconscious and leave her bleeding from the mouth. Before the physical confrontation, he told her, “I’m gonna blow your head off, you think you gonna leave that easy,” according to the motion.

Later, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in a November 2015 attack on another woman, who had recently ended a relationship with him, according to court documents. He also threatened her son when he tried to intervene.

He was released from prison on parole in October, prosecutors said, with a warning about an order of protection that barred him from approaching Jayden’s mother. Still, McCord Rodgers said, he sent her a text message on Jan. 30 threatening her and her family and showed up at her apartment on Feb. 1.

He rang the doorbell multiple times and tried to pull the door handle out of the door, she said. The woman contacted the parole board, and he was sent back to prison, she said.

Though prosecutors indicated in court that there was already an active order of protection, court records show that Jayden’s mother sought an emergency order of protection against Brand after that incident, just weeks before the attack.

In her petition, she said Brand had attempted to break into her apartment Feb. 1. The day before, Brand had texted her threatening to kill her and her family, according to the petition. A disposition order shows that a judge dismissed the petition at 10:33 a.m. on the day she was attacked.

On Tuesday, Brand was released again. The woman received an automated alert from the Department of Corrections informing her, prosecutors said.

Around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday, he showed up at the apartment again, prosecutors said, this time for a fatal attack.

Speaking at the Friday morning news conference, Snelling said the tragedy should never have happened. The woman who was attacked will have to face her own injuries as well the loss of her 11-year-old, and will never get to touch or hug him again, he said.

“She has lost him forever,” Snelling said.

Foxx called the case heartbreaking, saying that it has shocked the city. Jayden was killed trying to protect his mother, she said, calling the crime not just a brutal attack on one family.

“It was an assault on the very fabric of our community,” Foxx said.

Rattled friends and neighbors mourned the loss of Jayden, describing his family as calm, loving, polite and respectful.

Nathaniel Vodak, a friend in Jayden’s dance class, said Jayden had great technique matched by a strong work ethic. The two were the only boys in their 16-person dance troupe.

“He tried at everything that he did,” said Nathaniel, 12. “If there was something troublesome to him, he kept working on it.”

Nathaniel’s mother, Armensue Vodak, described Jayden as an upbeat, poised child with an expansive vocabulary.

“He was a well-loved child,” she said. “Always happy, always smiling.”