The man suspected of killing a Yonkers psychologist in her apartment in May is a career criminal from New Jersey who failed to stay on the straight and narrow after he was honored nearly a decade ago for holding down jobs and seemingly turning his life around.
An arrest warrant has been issued charging David Britt, of Paterson, with murder in the killing of 79-year-old Constance “Connie” Patrono, whose stabbed and beaten body was discovered May 16 in her ground floor apartment at the Bronxville Ridge co-ops on Bronx River Road.
Britt is believed to have been among the contractors in and out of Patrono’s apartment in the preceding months during an extensive remediation.
He has quietly been in custody in New Jersey since four days after the body was discovered. Paterson police arrested Britt shortly after a home invasion robbery May 20 when he was driving a vehicle that matched the description given by the victim.
Yonkers police, the Westchester District Attorney’s Office and the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office have declined to discuss Britt’s tie to the Patrono killing or confirm whether a Westchester grand jury has indicted him. The arrest warrant was confirmed by a spokesman for the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office.
Patrono, who grew up in Bronxville and still owned her childhood home there on Midland Avenue, had a psychology practice in which she specialized in treating 9/11 first responders. She also owned a home in Carmel.
In June 2016, Britt was among the honorees at an annual awards banquet of the Workforce Development Board of Passaic County, according to an article in The Paterson Press. They were recognizing him as a success of its job-training programs — first as a store clerk and then in construction, having turned his life around after spending many years in prison. He had last gotten out a year earlier after serving five years for aggravated assault, drug possession and burglary.
The positive turn didn’t stick. Britt was arrested in August 2018 after ramming Clifton police cars in an attempt to get away as they approached to question him about a home burglary that day and another one three months earlier.
He served another five years for that crime.
Besides a reference to other unspecified pending charges, there was no mention of the Yonkers killing Monday, Sept. 22, when Britt was arraigned in Passaic Superior Court on an indictment charging him with first-degree burglary, fourth-degree aggravated assault and weapon possession in the May 20 home invasion in Paterson.
He pleaded not guilty. The prosecution’s initial offer if he was to plead guilty would be for a 13-year prison term.
His lawyer, Deputy Assistant Public Defender Erica Salerno, did not return phone messages and siblings of Britt’s declined to comment.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Suspect in Yonkers slaying is in custody in New Jersey on burglary charge
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
