Young athlete killed his mother by hitting her with a pot at home: accusation in New York

Skydajah Patterson (26) was charged on suspicion of fatally beating her mother Selma Mclean (46) with a metal pot inside her public housing home (NYCHA) in the Bronx.

Family friends said Patterson, once a promising basketball player, suffered ongoing mental health problems, and had recently returned home from a stay in a psychiatric ward and never recovered after giving birth to a baby died six months ago.

Officers responding at 3:39 a.m. Monday found Mclean dead. It was Petterson who called 911 and confessed that he had killed her mother, said Danaeyah Reynolds (26), the victim’s goddaughter.

“I will be in court at every court date I have.” [Patterson]. That’s my sister. I don’t want her to feel alone,” Reynolds told the Daily Newswhile trying to process the family tragedy.

Patterson’s baby “was due to be born in September 2023 and was stillborn. It happened in July or August. In reality, he never got over it and his mental health became complicated,” said Rashawna Whitted (46), mother of Reynolds and friend of Mclean. “She was huge at basketball,” she added of Patterson.

The junior was named the 2019 Spalding National Junior College Athletic Association Division III “Girls Basketball Player of the Year,” Whitted said. She also earned MVP honors after her Hostos College team won the division championships, according to the association’s website.

When Reynolds learned Monday morning that Mclean was dead he ran to the building looking for answers and found the apartment in disarray. “There were police in front of the building, in front of the apartment… The door was open and when I looked inside. The shoe rack was knocked down. The things were on the floor. “There was blood on the floor and on the couch.”

The grieving goddaughter said that Patterson had been acting strangely on Saturday while they spent time together with other relatives and friends, and that on the morning of the crime she was going to go to the apartment to make sure the young woman was not alone while her mother went out to work. .

All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

Domestic violence is common in New York City and surrounding areas, between relatives, roommates and partners, even with minor victims. Every day in NYC, an average of 747 incidents of domestic violence – including assaults, abuse, verbal abuse – and about 65 homicides are reported annually.

In early March, a man was arrested on suspicion of killing his mother in their home in New Jersey. Last month, a man was accused of killing her sister by hitting her several times with a frying pan as she sat next to her father at a home in Erwin, New York’s Steuben County.

Also in February, a young 43-year-old Hispanic grandmother was shot to death by her partner, who then committed suicide in the victim’s apartment in Brooklyn (NYC). Earlier that month, a 40-year-old mother was killed and her two children were injured after a gunman opened fire on the family inside an apartment in the Bronx (NYC).

In January, a man was arrested a day after his mother’s funeral on suspicion of strangling her at her home in Staten Island (NYC). Also that month, a man and a woman were found dead with gunshot wounds to the head in an apartment in Brooklyn (NYC) in an apparent murder-suicide. Days before, a Hispanic woman killed her daughters and her husband and then took her own life inside her home in Union (NJ) after receiving an eviction order, authorities reported.

If you are a victim or suspect that someone is being abused, especially if it is a minor or elderly:

I looked for help

• Call 911, 988 or (800)-942-6906.
• Text “WELL” to 65173.
• Review information at https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/ and www.988lineadevida.org