{"id":7500,"date":"2025-10-18T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/7500\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T12:00:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T12:00:06","slug":"nyc-teen-who-allegedly-beheaded-moms-boyfriend-put-brains-in-blender-police-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/7500\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC teen who allegedly beheaded mom’s boyfriend put brains in blender: police sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

The twisted teenager\u00a0who allegedly beheaded his mom\u2019s boyfriend in Staten Island\u00a0<\/a>scooped the victim\u2019s brains out with a spoon and\u00a0put them in a blender, police sources said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t clear what Damien Hurstel intended to do with the gray matter, which was found in the kitchen appliance at the scene, the sources said.<\/p>\n

Cops said the 19-year-old\u00a0confessed to stabbing his mother\u2019s live-in boyfriend<\/a>, Anthony Casalaspro and sawing off his head inside the family\u2019s Cary Avenue home in West Brighton on Oct. 6.<\/p>\n

Damien Hurstel said little during a court appearance Friday. LP Media<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old victim\u2019s remains were found with a plastic soup ladle on the torso, and his head beside him with a spoon sticking out, a photo obtained by The Post showed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hurstel, who is facing second-degree murder, manslaughter and weapons charges, was transferred from a hospital to solitary confinement in Rikers Island jail earlier this week, said his lawyer Mark Fonte, who met his client in a room Friday\u00a0before a hearing in Richmond County Supreme Court.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was chilling,\u201d Fonte said of meeting the teen in person.<\/p>\n

Hurstel is charged with allegedly killing his mom\u2019s beau in the family\u2019s Staten Island home and then sawing off his head and putting his brains in a blender, police sources said. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was having a real difficult time separating fantasy from reality,\u201d said Fonte, who entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t sure what really happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fonte asked the teen why he ended up going to the hospital after his arrest and Herstel said he thought he had been in a fight.<\/p>\n

The teen\u2019s mom, Alicia Zayas, told The Post the doctors who were treating her son at Richmond University Medical Center changed his medication and didn\u2019t tell her. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019I think I might have fought two other people in there,\u2019 \u201d Fonte recalled his client telling him. \u201c \u2018I remember punching one in the face but I\u2019m not really sure that happened. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s like something I\u2019m imagining, or if it really happened.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Herstel also wasn\u2019t sure if he was taking medication at Rikers, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

The teenager showed his sister the bloody scene in the family\u2019s bathroom after he beheaded Casalaspro and asked the 16-year-old if she wanted their mother to live, mom Alicia Zayas, 39, exclusively told The Post.<\/p>\n

The mom said Casalaspro took her son fishing and tried to help him. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

The mom entered the bathroom looking for her beau and found a grisly scene when she returned home Oct. 6. Kyle Mazza\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Are you gonna hurt mom?\u2019 \u201d Zayas said of her 16-year-old daughter Bri\u2019s encounter with her blood-soaked son.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he said, \u2018Do you want her to live?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she said, \u2018Yes, please.\u2019<\/p>\n

A photo from the scene shows the severed head lying next to the corpse inside a walk-in shower. Obtained by the New York Post<\/p>\n

The disturbed youth is accused of stabbing city Department of Sanitation worker Casalaspro and then beheading him. Facebook\/Anthony Casalaspro<\/p>\n

The sister then asked if she could leave the family\u2019s bathroom and ran outside to call her mom and warn her.<\/p>\n

Hurstel started having hallucinations when he was 13 and drew pictures to show his mom the horrific scenes he was seeing, she said.<\/p>\n

Damien Hurstel began taking antipsychotic medication when he was 13 and suffering from gruesome hallucinations, his mom said. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when he first went on antipsychotic medication, she said.<\/p>\n

Zayas monitored Hurstel\u2019s condition through his teenage years, but once he reached 18 she was shut out, the mom said.<\/p>\n

Doctors at Richmond University Medical Center changed Hurstel\u2019s medication in January without notifying her, said Zayas, who claimed her son went downhill after the switch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The medical center said it doesn\u2019t disclose information about patients or the care they receive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The twisted teenager\u00a0who allegedly beheaded his mom\u2019s boyfriend in Staten Island\u00a0scooped the victim\u2019s brains out with a spoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[6551,2441,57,238,9,24,63,134,136,135,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-7500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-brains","9":"tag-mental-illness","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-murders","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-staten-island","16":"tag-staten-island-headlines","17":"tag-staten-island-news","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}