By Peter Sorkin
Anthony Bacon, 23, was charged with manslaughter in the first and second degrees, and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree in the killing of his older brother Albert, 27, said a spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney's office.
He is due back in court Dec. 12 and faces up to 25 years in jail if convicted.
The stabbing was the result of an argument which turned violent, said Officer Joe Cavitolo, a Police Department spokesman.
Anthony allegedly ran into the kitchen to grab a knife after a fight erupted between the two, Cavitolo said.
Albert was declared dead at the scene after being stabbed once in the shoulder and once in the eye, the officer said.
Cavitolo said the two retarded brothers lived with their parents in a fourth-floor apartment at 41-13 Vernon Blvd. A neighbor who lived on the third floor said the two often wrestled and rough-housed, but Albert sometimes bullied his younger brother.
“They were really one big happy family before this,” said tenant Michael Roldan who has been living in the housing project for a year and a half. “The brothers were always around. I used to see them in the elevator all the time and rode with them the other day. It could be years before you meet anyone in the building, but I would see them come and go all the time.”
Roldan said Albert would constantly tease his younger brother.
“The younger one was working and going to school,” Roldan said. “But they were always fighting, the way brothers usually do. They would play fight, wrestle with one another. But the older one had nothing to do. Jealously can play a part in that sometimes, but other than that they seemed pretty close.”
Roldan said he offered his condolences to the family Monday night and prayed that they get through their tragedy.
“You know it's sad, it's really sad,” Roldan said. “They may have been brothers, but they were opposites.”
