'Something Horrible Happened,'

Alleged Staten Island Killer Told Neighbor

Staten Island Advance 5/7/09

A neighbor testified today that an accused Staten Island murderess made a panicked phone call to her on the morning prosecutors allege the defendant slayed her husband.

"Something horrible has happened. Come and get the girls," Karen Krack testified in court recounting Janet Redmond-Mercereau's words on Dec. 2, 2007. "It was a voice that showed me something was wrong."

However, during the hour or so that the defendant remained in her home before police took Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau to the 122nd Precinct stationhouse for questioning, she never said exactly what had happened, Ms. Krack said. The witness also said she never asked the defendant for details.

Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau, 40, is accused of slaying her 38-year-old husband, Supervising Fire Marshal Douglas Mercereau, with his service weapon as he slept in their Tarring Street home on Dec. 2, 2007. Afterward, she allegedly tried to cover her tracks by showering and running the gun through the dishwasher to erase fingerprints.

The defense alleges Mercereau was murdered around 8:30 p.m. the night before. The defendant was out shopping then with one of her daughters.

Ms. Krack, a next-door neighbor and close friend of both the defendant and victim, testified for about 90 minutes in state Supreme Court, St. George.

Dressed in a dark suit and with her hair pulled back, she said she was sleeping on Dec. 2, 2007, when she heard a noise outside about 8 a.m. Thinking it was a car or someone shoveling - it had recently snowed - she did not get out of bed.

But about 20 minutes later, the defendant frantically telephoned her.

Ms. Krack said she immediately went outside and got the defendant's two young daughters and brought them into her home. She then went back and got Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau, who was waiting outside her own house. Before entered the witness's house, Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau spoke in Spanish to a Hispanic man who was standing by the Mercereau's driveway. Ms. Krack said she did not understand what was being said. The man apparently was a laborer who had come to do work at the Mercereau home.

Once in Ms. Krack's home, the defendant began crying, and rocked and held her hands up to her face.

She asked for an alcoholic beverage to "calm her nerves," said the witness. Ms. Krack said she gave Mrs. Redmond-Mercereau a small juice glass filled with peach brandy. Contradicting the testimony of an EMS fire captain, she said she never served, and the defendant never drank, three shots of Johnnie Walker scotch. The defendant did not appear to become intoxicated while drinking the brandy, she said.

-- Reported by Frank Donnelly