Prosecutors say a neighbor, a discarded knife and evidence found after the arrest also connect Sage Arias-Brown to his father’s death.

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A desperate 911 call placed from a Mastic apartment is at the center of the murder case against Sage Arias-Brown, a 33-year-old Lake Ronkonkoma man accused of fatally stabbing his father, Edward Brown, as the 69-year-old sought emergency help, according to police and prosecutors.

The call is one piece of a larger evidence trail described by authorities following the Sept. 7 killing. Prosecutors say a neighbor heard the disturbance, later saw Arias-Brown leave the apartment, and police found him about half a mile away. At a later court hearing, a prosecutor said a bloodied knife had been recovered from a garbage can outside the apartment and sent for testing. Arias-Brown has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, and the allegations against him have not been proven at trial.

Suffolk County police said the case began at about 12:30 a.m., when Edward Brown called 911 from his studio apartment on Mastic Boulevard and reported that he had been stabbed. Prosecutors later disclosed more of what they said was captured during the call. Brown could be heard saying that he was being murdered and asking, “What are you doing to me, Sage?” The recording has become one of the most consequential pieces of evidence publicly described in the case because it appears to identify the alleged attacker while the emergency was unfolding.

Authorities say the call was not the only contemporaneous account. A neighbor reported hearing a loud bang and then Brown screaming from inside the apartment. According to prosecutors, that same witness later saw Arias-Brown leave the residence several minutes after the 911 call was made. Police responding to the scene encountered Arias-Brown walking about half a mile away and placed him under arrest. Newsday reported that a police spokesperson said the arrest occurred on nearby Hawthorne Street at 1:32 a.m., roughly an hour after Brown’s call.

Inside the apartment, police and personnel from the Mastic Volunteer Ambulance Company found Brown unresponsive. Emergency workers attempted life-saving measures, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Prosecutors later said an autopsy found about 40 stab wounds. The number and location of the injuries were disclosed as part of the prosecution’s account, but authorities have not publicly identified a motive for the killing. No reliable public account reviewed for this story established what led to the confrontation inside the apartment before the emergency call.

Additional physical evidence was described when Arias-Brown appeared in Suffolk County Court on Sept. 17. Assistant District Attorney Melissa Grier told Acting State Supreme Court Justice Richard Horowitz that Arias-Brown’s clothing, hands and backpack appeared bloodied when police encountered him and that he had a cut on his hand, Newsday reported. Grier also said investigators recovered a bloodied knife from a garbage can outside the apartment. At that point, she said, the weapon was being tested by the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory. The public reports reviewed for this article did not disclose final laboratory findings.

The Sept. 17 proceeding marked a shift from the initial police charge to a grand jury indictment. Arias-Brown pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder. Horowitz ordered him held while the case was pending. District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in announcing the indictment that prosecutors believed Brown was desperately seeking police help during the attack and described the case as heartbreaking. The indictment remains an accusation, and Arias-Brown is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless he is convicted.

Defense attorney Katherine Fernandez told the court that Arias-Brown had documented mental health concerns and was receiving medication while in jail, according to Newsday. She said he understood the proceedings and noted that he had no prior criminal convictions. No publicly reviewed court record established that mental health was the cause of the alleged attack, and the defense did not announce an insanity defense in the reporting examined for this story. The information therefore remains part of Arias-Brown’s defense background rather than an explanation for Brown’s death.

Arias-Brown also faces a separate third-degree robbery charge stemming from a May incident at a TD Bank in Lake Ronkonkoma. Suffolk County police said a man entered the bank on May 8, gave a teller a note demanding money and fled on foot. Police announced Arias-Brown’s arrest in that case on May 15. The robbery allegation is separate from the murder prosecution and had not resulted in a conviction when the murder indictment was reported. Fernandez stressed in court that the robbery matter had not gone to trial.

The prosecution’s publicly described case therefore relies on several different categories of evidence rather than a single allegation: Brown’s own emergency call, the neighbor’s account of sounds from the apartment and Arias-Brown’s departure, the defendant’s location when police found him, physical evidence observed after the arrest, the knife prosecutors say was recovered nearby, and the medical examiner’s findings. How much of that evidence will ultimately be admitted at trial, how the defense will challenge it and whether forensic testing strengthens or weakens the state’s case remain unresolved.

The legal consequences are substantial. Second-degree murder is a Class A felony in New York, and prosecutors have said Arias-Brown could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted. Public reports published in September said he was scheduled to return to court Oct. 21. Searches of reliable public sources through Nov. 6 did not locate a subsequent report establishing what occurred at that scheduled appearance, so the latest independently verified status available for this article is that Arias-Brown had been remanded while the prosecution remained pending.

Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.