The 16-year-old girl who allegedly stabbed a 29-year-old man to death on Christmas Eve is being held pending arraignment on a charge of first degree manslaughter, according to Queens DA Richard A. Brown.
Cyan Brown, of 40-13 10th Street in the Queensbridge Houses surrendered to police at the 114th Precinct late in the afternoon on Tuesday, December 29, according to a spokesperson for the DA, who told The Queens Courier, “The prosecutor is drawing up the complaint and felt that the first degree manslaughter charge was warranted.”
If convicted of the charge, she faces 25 years in prison.
Brown had reportedly been in hiding at a relative’s house in Brooklyn since the December 24 incident that killed “aspiring rapper” Thomas “Black Box” Winston. According to reports, some time after 8 p.m., Winston and as many as seven of his associates surrounded Brown in front of the Big New York Fried Chicken & Pizza at 21st Street and 41st Avenue, across the street from the Queensbridge Houses, where Brown lives with her mother and father.
Reports attributed to police and witnesses say that Wilson “came on” to Brown, while she was ordering food in the store, and that “at one point he kicked her and threw liquor on her.”
Relatives and friends of Winston’s paint a different picture, describing the ex-con who was reportedly living in a “nearby homeless shelter” as “turning his life around,” and claiming that Brown, a high school sophomore, “had a history of stabbing people.”
“If you had an argument with her, she’d stab you,” a cousin of the deceased reportedly said, while another claimed that, “The boy she [Brown] was with bumped into my cousin and that started this whole thing.”
However, witnesses reportedly said that Brown fled to the 21st Street-Queensbridge “F” train station across the street and down to the train platform, with Winston and pals in pursuit.
They allegedly pulled her off of the train and dragged her up to the mezzanine level – where she stabbed Wilson once in the torso at about 8:25 p.m. Brown managed to flee while “seven or eight of them were chasing [her],” according to MTA employee Ricardo Josephs, 41.
But Winston’s cousin, Tedra Laws, 31, reportedly said he wasn’t in the station, but was trying to catch a cab to bring a present to his 10-month-old daughter, living with an aunt nearby.
Brown’s father, Tony Lovitt, 48, reportedly claimed that Wilson and his accomplices “tried to feel up my daughter,” and declared, “She said she feared for her life and she felt like she was going to be raped, so she panicked.”
Reports claim that Winston had a “rap sheet for attempted murder and drugs.” A police source told The Courier that Winston’s record included “assault, criminal possession of a weapon and resisting arrest,” as well as “pending charges.”
According to DA Brown, Thomas Winston, 29, was arrested for possession of a box cutter and more than a half-ounce of cocaine on September 17, behind 40-03 12th Street in the Queensbridge Houses, just yards from the subway entrance. He gave his address as 630 Riverside Drive in Manhattan, which is the location of “Fortune Academy,” a shelter for homeless former inmates.
