A man was charged with killing his own father while he was on a zoom call. The man says that it was payback for what his dad did to him. Erica Byfield reports.
A Long Island man was stabbed and killed by his son while he was participating in a live video chat from his home, police said.
Dwight Powers was at his Amityville home on Dixon Avenue around noon on Thursday and taking part in a Zoom call with around 20 people when the attack happened, Suffolk County police said.
"By the defendant's own admissions, he brutally stabbed his own father repeatedly until he was certain he was dead," Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini said in a statement Friday.
Sini's office announced second degree murder charges were issued against 32-year-old Thomas Scully-Powers. He was arraigned Friday and remanded without bail; he faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, the district attorney said.
Others on the call saw the 72-year-old father collapse and fall off the screen, according to police, and quickly notified authorities as they grew concerned.
"I saw the victim was breathing heavily, all of a sudden he wasn't in the camera's view and a bald naked man ripped sheets off his bed and placed it on the floor like he was covering something up," said one man who was on the call, but didn't wish to be identified.
With some help from the others in the meetings, police were able to track down where Powers lived. When police arrived, a person answered the door and slammed it closed on them, said Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County Police Department. By the time officers secured the back of the home, the man had jumped out a window.
News
Scully-Powers fled the home and led cops on a chase for more than a mile, even running onto the grounds of a nearby hospital before he was caught less than an hour later and taken into custody, police said.
The prosecutor's office says officers recovered several knives allegedly used in the attack as well as a mop and bucket presumably used to try and clean up the scene. Police say the victim was stabbed more than a dozen times.
The 32-year-old was transported to an area hospital after his leap from the window, according to Suffolk County police.
A motive for the alleged stabbing was not immediately clear, however Scully-Powers said to reporters on Friday that his father allegedly raped him with a firearm.
"He raped me with a gun. Two nights ago. And, he stabbed me, slit my wrists. My wrists do not look OK," Scully-Powers told reporters while being led away in handcuffs by officers. His account of sexual abuse has not been verified by NBC New York.
"I jumped out the window to get away from him," Scully-Powers said. "The cops were going to shoot me."
An investigation is ongoing.
