By Lou Michel
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: January 01, 2010, 6:31 AM /
They had been described as a loving couple.
When Tomell HaSidi was released from prison last summer, he found an open door at the East Side home of his fiancee’s mother.
When HaSidi and Lekiesta Brown broke off their engagement, she was the one to move out of her mother’s home, and HaSidi was allowed to continue living there.
But Brown’s family drew the line with HaSidi and ordered him out of the Briscoe Avenue home after Lekiesta — their daughter and sister — mysteriously disappeared Dec. 19.
The mystery ended Wednesday in a tragic, horrific conclusion.
Family members sat in a mournful daze Thursday in the living room of their home, trying to comprehend the crime HaSidi is accused of committing.
Police say he killed the 32-year-old woman, then dismembered her body and dumped the parts into the Black Rock Channel, near the foot of Massachusetts Avenue.
Members of the Underwater Recovery Team began searching the waterway Wednesday morning after federal authorities at the nearby Peace Bridge reported that surveillance cameras had caught suspicious activity.
Police divers continued their search Thursday and so far have collected several portions of Brown’s remains, including a leg. But they still were searching for upper body parts.
“He claimed to love her so much. You wouldn’t think he’d do this,” said Veronica Gault, Brown’s mother. “I’ll never forgive him because I welcomed him into my home and tried to help him get his life together.”
The heartbroken mother had gone to City Court earlier Thursday to see the 32- year-old HaSidi, of French Street, for herself and hear the official charge lodged against him — second-degree murder “caused by means of stabbing and dismembering” Brown’s body.
“He glanced at me, that was it,” Gault said.
She and her older daughter say HaSidi never exhibited any signs of violence in the months he stayed at their home.
Official criminal records of his past crimes offer no indications of violent behavior.
In August, he was released from the Wende Correctional Facility for his second parole violation stemming from convictions on felony charges of forgery and grand larceny.
Theola Gault, Brown’s older sister, recalled when she gave HaSidi his marching orders Dec. 21, two days after her sister disappeared.
“He was the last one to see my sister. She had come over here to get some clothes. She was staying with a friend in Cheektowaga, and Lekiesta and Tomell left the house at about the same time.
“I later asked him where she was, and he said ‘I don’t know.’ I told him he had to leave. I couldn’t take looking at him with my sister not being around,” Theola Gault said.
And while pain was the only thing Brown’s relatives were feeling New Year’s Eve, Theola Gault found some comfort in what would be her final exchange with her sister:
“The last thing she said to me was, ‘I love you, big sister.’ I said, ‘I love you, too. Call me when you get off work.’ ”
That call never came.
Brown worked at a Getzville home for developmentally disabled adults and was working toward a degree in psychology at Erie Community College North in Amherst.
“We talked every day. She would never just disappear,” the older sister said, adding that Brown loved working with those at the home.
As for HaSidi, a recent survivor of colon cancer, community activist Darnell Jackson said he had met with him and Brown about two months ago to discuss the possibility of renting the couple an apartment on Barthel Street.
“He was disabled from the cancer surgery, and I was trying to get him a job to make some money,” Jackson said, expressing shock at the allegations against HaSidi. “I met with them and thought they were the sweetest couple. I’m not lying. She was so respectful and so proper. He was a real gentleman, very respectful.”
Brown ultimately ended the engagement “because it just wasn’t working,” Theola Gault said.
Veronica Gault said that, once her daughter, the third oldest of her four children, had disappeared, the family was unable to take joy in the holidays.
“We didn’t put up decorations or go Christmas shopping,” the mother said, listlessly looking about her living room. “Normally, I cook up black-eyed peas and rice as a meal for good luck on New Year’s Eve, but I won’t be doing that.”
Instead, she and other family members say they will continue to mourn Brown’s unthinkable end.
“He’s a monster,” Theola Gault said of HaSidi. “A monster.”
HaSidi, who remained incarcerated, was scheduled to return to City Court on Monday for a felony hearing.
For police divers, this is not the first time they searched the Black Rock Channel for a homicide victim.
Four years ago, they recovered the dismembered body of a West Side woman.
In that case, homicide detectives accused the woman’s teenage son and a convicted pedophile of killing Madeline Irene, who was drugged before being strangled and dismembered.
News staff reporter T. J. Pignataro contributedto this report.e-mail: lmichel@buffnews.com
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