Sheriff: Ex-Commack mom 'close' to son she killed

There was no prior indication of strife between a former Commack resident and her son before she allegedly killed him at their upstate residence, according to current and former neighbors and a police official.

"Actually we were told that him and his mother were very close," Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said after the arrest Tuesday of Tracey Zetzsche, 52, of Westerlo, N.Y., in the death of her son, Gabriel Philby-Zetzsche, 22, who had suffered from cerebral palsy.

She was arraigned on a single second-degree murder count Tuesday evening in Westerlo Town Court and ordered held without bail pending a hearing Monday, the Albany district attorney's office said.

The woman and her son had moved about a year ago from Commack to Westerlo, which is southwest of Albany.

Court records show Tracey and Richard Zetzsche filed for divorce in Suffolk County in 1991, the year after Gabriel was born, and she apparently had worked at low-paying or minimum-wage jobs over the years.

"She took very good care of [Gabriel]. She was very protective," Barbara Horeis, 61, who lived near the Zetzsche family on Fortune Court in Commack, said Wednesday. "It was a hard life for both of them, with him needing extra help," Horeis said. "[Zetzsche] did the best she could with the cards she was dealt."

Apple gave no motive for the slaying, and said Tracey Zetzsche had refused to talk to investigators. "She was not forthcoming," he said.

He said a relative, who was not identified, found the body in the apartment on Monday, and that Gabriel had been bludgeoned with a hammer and stabbed in the chest several times. Zetzsche was at home Monday and apparently had been in the house for several days with the body on the floor, the sheriff said.

Yesterday, the victim's father, Richard Zetzsche said he hadn't spoken to his son or his ex-wife for several months when his brother called yesterday with news of the death.

"I'm just bewildered," said Zetzsche, who will be coming to Albany Thursday.

"You sit by yourself and you ask the question, 'What happened?' " Zetzsche said. "You're trying to grab hold of the severity, because this is just as much a tragedy as you can get."

Zetzsche, a devout Christian, said he raised his son in that tradition."We prayed a lot, and we were always on the basketball court," he said. "He was a beautiful boy, beautiful kid. I gave him his name, Gabriel, after the angel."

He said his son had been a student at Wilson Tech in Dix Hills, where he was learning how to work the printing press.

Peter Rufa, landlord of the building where Tracey Zetzsche rented an apartment, said the mother and son were close. "She never went anywhere without him," Rufa said.

With AP