Man Arrested for Fatally Beating ‘Frail’ 77-Year-Old NYC Granny He Lived With

Man Arrested for Fatally Beating ‘Frail’ 77-Year-Old NYC Granny He Lived With

By Kevin Sheehan, Tina Moore and Ben Kesslen, NY Post

A Brooklyn man was busted Monday for allegedly murdering a “frail” elderly woman with dementia who had apparently taken him into her home to help her.

Elenora Bernard, 77, had argued with suspect Andre Hooper, 51, over the use of her car the day before she was found slain, a neighbor told The Post on Monday.

Bernard’s badly beaten body was found by cops responding to a 911 call in her East Flatbush home Saturday evening, and the medical examiner Monday said she died from asphyxiation.

Hooper lived at the home and allegedly used the victim’s car to operate a van service — an apparent source of heated recent tension between him and Bernard and her family, local residents said.

“He was running a dollar cab on Church Ave. I know because he stop and try to pick me up on Church Ave., and I say, ‘No! No! No!’ ” said Grace McPherson, 68, who lived next to Bernard in the semi-attached Brooklyn home for 26 years.

The day before Bernard was found dead, “He took her car and get all kinds of tickets. I heard her yell, ‘Bring my keys back here! I’m calling my son!’ ” McPherson said.

One of Bernard’s children is 2021 Brooklyn borough-president candidate Khari Edwards, who has told The Post he is “in no condition to talk.”

McPherson said she also heard the elderly woman’s daughter fighting with Hooper on Friday, the day before her death.

“Her daughter come the day before she die and was fussing with him, ‘Leave the vehicle!’ ” the neighbor said.

Hooper had been “out all night” with the elderly woman’s GMC Envoy the day before she died, the resident said.

McPherson said that when cops brought Hooper out of the home after the slaying, he was “all eyes closed — oh, Lord! — saying, ‘I tried to help her, I tried to help her.’

“She was so frail, she get so small,” the neighbor added of Bernard.

“She needed help. She said … he helped her so she took him in,” the neighbor said, adding that Hooper started living there last summer.

Bernard’s body was found bruised all over, including under her chin and lip, on her left eye and on her upper chest and right ankle and calf when she was discovered by police, law-enforcement sources said. She also had swelling to both of her hands, a fractured left arm and abrasions to her back. Sources told The Post they believe the woman had dementia.

A different neighbor who had known her for 30 years told The Post that “none of us knew why she took him in.

“She was funny, always making us smile,” the 63-year-old added of Bernard.

Hooper was seen Monday wearing a button-down shirt and red basketball shorts during his walk by cops out the 67th Precinct to his Brooklyn Criminal Court.

He was remanded without bail at his Monday night arraignment.

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