Cop testifies defendant’s son said father killed mother

A boy met police responding to a call about a stabbing last year by opening the front door of a Bethpage home and blurting out something even before they asked a question, a sergeant testified Monday.

“He said, ‘My father killed my mother,’ ” Nassau police Sgt. Timothy Siar recalled at a pretrial hearing in the government’s murder case against Robert Crumb. He described the boy as having been “stone-faced and in shock.”

Crumb, 44, previously pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging him with the Nov. 4, 2016, slaying of his wife, Maria Crumb, 41, along with assault, weapon, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest charges.

An early-morning 911 call from the couple’s 12-year-old son brought police to the family’s Seitz Drive house, where they found his mother dead in a back bedroom, according to authorities.

Authorities have alleged Crumb fatally stabbed his wife, and also wounded their 16-year-old daughter as she tried to intervene during the attack. They’ve said the man then led police on a car chase that ended in his capture after a fiery gas station crash in Brooklyn.

But Robert Crumb’s attorney, Stephen Scaring, said in an interview after Monday’s Nassau County Court hearing that evidence will show his client acted in self-defense after Maria Crumb, armed with a knife, came into a room where he was sleeping.

“She started it,” the Garden City attorney said, adding that the couple’s son came “into the middle of a horrific scene,” and by that time, “things had already progressed.”

Brendan Brosh, a spokesman for the Nassau district attorney’s office, later declined to comment on Scaring’s statements.

Siar also testified Monday that he saw a lot of blood on the floor as soon as the boy opened the door. The sergeant said he was among police personnel who drew guns and searched the home to make sure the suspect wasn’t still there.

Siar said police found the wife covered with blood in a bedroom and she appeared dead from stab wounds. Siar said he then came upon the couple’s 16-year-old daughter crying in the home’s basement bathroom, and saw she had injuries to her arms and hands.

“She was hysterical. She just wanted to leave the house,” he testified, adding that after he spoke to the girl, he used his police radio to broadcast Robert Crumb’s name and a description of the car he might be driving.

Police have said a car chase started minutes after Crumb fled his house when they found his Hyundai Sonata parked on the westbound side of the Southern State Parkway near the Newbridge Road exit.

Nassau Police Officer Matthew Fusaro testified Monday he went to the parkway to back up another officer at what they thought was an auto accident, before Crumb drove off and Fusaro began leading what turned into a pursuit that at times reached 90 mph.

“It came over he was wanted for a homicide,” Fusaro said he learned from a police broadcast during a pursuit that traveled onto the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

The officer testified it ended after Crumb left the parkway at Pennsylvania Avenue, soon turning into a Flatlands Avenue gas station and driving right into a gas pump that exploded and set Crumb’s car on fire.

Fusaro said he approached the car’s passenger side, his gun drawn, before Crumb got out and charged at him as he backed up about 25 feet — gun pointed at Crumb — while twice telling him, “Police! Don’t move!”

The officer told Scaring during a cross examination, when asked if he agreed that he had been justified at that point to open fire, that Crumb “had nothing in his hands when he was charging at me.”

Fusaro also testified that Crumb grabbed his uniform, and they both fell to the ground before Fusaro hit his head and lost consciousness. He said he woke up after what he believed was 10 seconds and saw the gas station engulfed in flames and other officers handcuffing Crumb. One of those officers handed him his gun back, Fusaro said.

Authorities have said previously that Crumb knocked out an officer and grabbed his gun before police arrested him.

Fusaro on Monday described Crumb as being covered in blood, and a police medic later testified the man had deep wounds to his neck and arms.

Authorities have said previously that Crumb needed treatment for stab wounds, and a law enforcement source has said it appeared Crumb had tried to kill himself before his capture.

But Scaring said in Monday’s interview that his client was distraught and tried to kill himself by driving into the gas pump and then attacking the officer. He also suggested that the man suffered wounds while acting in self-defense.

The defense attorney added that Crumb had no recollection of hurting his own daughter.

The hearing continues Tuesday.