Harrowing details revealed on 1st day of trial for murder of Jayden Perkins, 11, stabbed defending pregnant mom
The trial of a Chicago man who is charged with stabbing an 11-year-old boy to death as he protected his pregnant mother got underway Monday.
Crosetti Brand, 39, is charged with 17 felony counts including first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, armed robbery, home invasion and domestic battery in the March 13, 2024, incident.
Prosecutors and police say Brand went to the home of his pregnant ex-girlfriend Laterria Smith and stabbed her in the neck. When her son, 11-year-old Jayden Perkins, tried to intervene and protect his mother, Brand allegedly stabbed him in the chest.
Smith, 33, was critically injured. Perkins was killed.
A jury was selected for the trial Friday. On Monday morning, after the court heard arguments over a voicemail and phone records, the jury was brought in and sworn in, and opening statements began.
Prosecutors said Perkins was forced to stop being an 11-year-old kid and become his mother's protector during the violent attack. They detailed the history between Brand and Smith, saying she first met him while she was a 15-year-old high school student. The prosecution said that when Smith broke off their relationship, Brand could not take the rejection and began to terrorize her, firing a gun outside her home, throwing rocks at her home and attacking her, prosecutors said, which forced her to get an order of protection against him.
Prosecutors said in 2008, Brand violated the order, which resulted in a 16-year sentence after being convicted of home invasion, for him to leave her alone.
Prosecutors said the first thing Brand did when he was released from prison in October 2023 was contact Smith. During his sentence, she had grown up, had two children, and gotten engaged. Prosecutors said she began a secret relationship with Brand over the phone and text message, and sometimes meeting in person at a hotel.
When she again decided to end the relationship with Brand, prosecutors said he told her he would kill both her and her fiancé in front of her children. When she told him she was going to get another order of protection against him, prosecutors said he threatened her over text by telling her if she did, she'd be dead within a week.
The month before the attack, Smith had sought an order of protection against Brand, who had a violent history of domestic battery. Her request was denied, even though Brand had been sent back to prison on a parole violation that included an attempt to break into her home just weeks before.
Smith was attacked just hours before a scheduled court hearing in her case. Brand had been granted parole on the day before the attack. Initially, the Illinois Department of Corrections said they were notified about the order of protection, but later admitted they did get a notification about the court date. Days later, the head of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board resigned.
"Well, this case stood out to me, and I've tried hundreds of cases in this building," said CBS News Chicago Legal Analyst Irv Miller. "The history of this case — with the orders of protection that have gone on for decades, actually, and the fact that he was released by the Illinois Prison Review Board, and a couple of the members of the prison review board had to resign from the board because they mistakenly let him out."
Prosecutors said the day of the attack she opened her door at 7:45 a.m. after getting her children ready to school to find Brand on her porch dressed in all black and in a mask. Prosecutors then described a harrowing attack in which 11-year-old Jayden desperately tried to pull the defendant off his mother, during which Jayden was also stabbed. Smith was stabbed 11 times; Jayden was stabbed once in the upper chest and did not survive.
Prosecutors also detailed what they said was a trail of evidence Brand left in the aftermath of the attack, including video of him throwing the murder weapon over a fence into a yard, video of him wearing all black running down an alley, video of him getting onto the CTA Red Line, video of him borrowing a stranger's phone on the train which he allegedly used to call his mom, and video of his mother leaving her apartment with a change of clothes. Prosecutors also said they have video evidence of Brand throwing his shoes away at a CTA station, meeting up with his mother to get the change of clothes, and returning to her apartment after changing out of what they called his "murder clothes."
Prosecutors said police recovered all of the evidence Brand attempted to dispose of, including the knife, his shoes, his clothes and his mask, which they said fell off in Smith's apartment.
Brand, who is representing himself at trial, argued in his opening statement that he was in Smith's home as a guest, and during that time he was fearful for his life. He cited Illinois law that says a person can use deadly force in self-defense if necessary, and argued he tried to defend himself in the moment and using deadly force was necessary in the moment.
Brand's opening statement was often difficult to hear in the courtroom, but he argued that once they have reviewed all the evidence, the jury should find him not guilty on all charges.
Miller said because Crosetti Brand is representing himself, this trial will likely take longer than it typically would. He also said Brand has a limited range of options when it comes to mounting a defense.
"He's his own lawyer, so he's got to see all these videos of his every move he made on the day to the homicide, every piece of evidence collected by the Chicago Police Department," Miller said. "So when it comes to a point when you get to see it between the time of the arrest and today, you come to the point of saying, 'Gee, maybe saying, "It's not me," is not the right defense.' That doesn't leave a lot of defenses. So self-defense is about the last one you could probably come up with. Usually the last defense is insanity, but that never works."
If Brand is found guilty, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
