Accused strangler ‘took matters into his own hands’ in Cary murders, prosecutor says
Brandon Lee strangled his mother out of anger over a lost job, a fed-up girlfriend and a sputtering life — finally killing the parent who nagged and nagged him into frustration, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
While Christa Lee’s body lay covered with ice in her Cary bathtub, her 34-year-old son then broke into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, choked her, then slept on her sofa overnight with Krystal Hylton dead on the floor.
“He decided to take matters into his own hands — literally,” said Wake County Assistant District Attorney Patrick Latour, starting what is expected to be a weeklong first-degree murder trial.
But Lee’s attorney Jonathan Broun said his client suffers from chronic alcoholism stemming from childhood trauma and depression
Originally from New Jersey, Lee’s grandfather was both the first black dentist and elected official in his town, Broun said. His mother was a dancer on “Soul Train.” Before moving to Cary, Lee studied at Rutgers University, worked on Wall Street and modeled in the pages of GQ magazine.
But Lee’s mother, with whom he shared a Cary apartment, suffered from mental illness and both interfered in his relationship with Hylton and berated him for not making enough money, Broun said.
She had threatened him with a knife on a previous Thanksgiving, and she did so again on the night she was killed in December 2015, telling Lee he was better off dead.
Lee has brain deficiencies that keep him from handling stress and acting rationally, Broun said. With both his mother and his ex-girlfriend, he snapped.
“Brandon Lee killed the two people in this world he loved the most,” Broun said. “Their deaths are tragic, horrible and heartbreaking. But they were not first-degree murder. These were not cold-blooded killings.”
Latour described Lee “going about his business” after his mother’s death, buying groceries, beer and ice. Christa Lee, 58, lay in her bathtub for roughly a week.
After the killing, prosecutors said, Lee asked his girlfriend to take care of his dog, which she reluctantly did, wanting to move on from their relationship.
She told Lee to fetch the dog or she would take it to the pound, Latour said, and with his mother’s body still on ice, Lee broke in his girlfriend’s window hoping to catch her with another man.
Lee then “defiled” Hylton’s body, Latour said.
Broun, Lee’s attorney, said his client wrote on her corpse with a Sharpie pen and tried to cross the words out.
“Everything began spiraling out of control and he did not have the means to deal with it,” Broun said, adding his client did not break in with the intent to hurt Hylton. “Brandon just wanted a hug before he went to jail.”
Testimony continues Wednesday.
This story was originally published September 25, 2019 at 1:01 PM.