A Cook County judge will allow prosecutors to use the testimony of a 5-year-old boy in their case against a man accused of killing the boy’s brother and brutally stabbing their mother just a day after being released from prison.
Judge Angela Petrone ruled Monday that the boy’s statements, made during an interview at the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center, were reliable enough to be used at the trial of Crosetti Brand in the March 13 attack that left 11-year-old Jayden Perkins dead and his mother severely wounded.
Brand is accused of forcing his way in the home as the family got ready for school and repeatedly stabbing Jayden’s mother, who was pregnant, and fatally stabbing her 11-year-old son when he tried to intervene.
During a 25-minute interview later in the day, the boy said, “I saw blood everywhere in my house. He was about to kill my mom. … He was stabbing her.”
Petrone wrote that the younger boy began talking about the allegations unprompted and answered the questions from the interviewer appropriately for his age.
“The facts show there would have been little, if any, time to reflect and make up anything about what had occurred,” the judge said.
Brand had been released from prison last fall after serving eight years of a 16-year sentence for attacking another former partner.
While on release, Brand allegedly went to the home of Jayden’s mother, whom he had previously dated, and tried to get inside her apartment building. She contacted authorities, and Brand was taken back into custody for allegedly violating an order of protection against him.
The Prisoner Review Board decided to release him again. After the attack, the board chair and another member stepped down from their positions, and changes to the board have been proposed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Brand, who has decided to represent himself in the case, opposed the boy’s testimony at a hearing last month.
Brand argued that police and fire department reports he has received as evidence did not list the boy as a witness or victim. The boy also had spent the hours between the attack and the interview with relatives and police.
“When a person is 5 years old, they pick up on things … being said by people around them,” Brand told the judge at that hearing. “Any child can be persuaded as a 5-year-old.”
The boy described Brand as “savaging” his mother and brother, saying he had picked up the word from a news report and that it “means when someone is getting stabbed.”