'Ugly Betty' Actor Says He Killed Mother Because She Was Possessed

Nov. 26. 2010— -- The New York City actor who eviscerated his mother with a ceremonial Freemason sword two days before Thanksgiving believes he did not kill the woman who raised him but the demon who possessed her, according to a news report.

In an interview with the New York Daily News from the psychiatric ward of the hospital police brought him to Tuesday, Michael Brea, 31, said he heard voices telling him to kill his mother and he believed he was doing God's work.

"I didn't kill her, I killed the demon inside her," Brea told the paper. "So be it. It was the work of God."

Brea was arrested early Tuesday morning after neighbors called police to the Brooklyn apartment he shared with his mother, Yannick Brea, 55, when they heard the woman shrieking in pain as her son allegedly slashed her with the 3-foot-long sword.

The interview he gave to the Daily News was conducted from the hospital room where he has been kept since his arrest. The paper said Brea was not handcuffed at the time.

Brea's family members have said the actor had no previous history of mental illness but he came across in the interview as severely disturbed and delusional.

The actor, who played a bit part in the ABC show "Ugly Betty," said he began having paranoid visions and hearing voices days after joining a Masonic lodge in Harlem.

He said he joined the Prince Hall Masonic Temple last week where he was approached by a man who tried to curse him.

Soon after, he began having conversations with subway passengers who, he said, told him to kill his mother. On the night before he allegedly killed the woman, he said he received a message from God in a dream.

"I said, 'God, is my time on earth over?' I heard a voice say, 'Yes, Michael, today is your last day.' I asked if I could say goodbye to my family," he said.