New York Post: Suspect Sought in Murder of Rashawn Brazell

GAY BEAU SOUGHT IN BODY-CHOP SLAY
By LARRY CELONA

March 20, 2006 -- The gruesome slaying of a gay Brooklyn teen whose dismembered body was found in a subway tunnel - once sparking fears of a transit-worker killer - had an older lover whom cops now want to grill.

Investigators recently discovered that tragic aspiring Web-site designer Rashawn Brazell, 19, had a boyfriend who rented a room around the corner from Brazell's Gates Avenue home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

The older man - described by cops only as in his 30s and living on welfare - hasn't been seen since the death of Brazell, who vanished on Valentine's Day 2004, the sources said. The man is believed to have moved somewhere down South.

"We want to try and find this guy, identify him and talk to him," a police source said.

Three days after Brazell vanished, a subway worker found his legs, an arm and part of his torso in a blue plastic bag on the A-train line a few hundred feet north of the Nostrand Avenue station, which is close to Brazell's home.

Six days later, workers came across a bag containing Brazell's waist and pelvis at a Greenpoint recycling plant that serves a company that collects garbage along the A line.

His head has never been found.

On the last day Brazell was seen alive, he told people he was meeting a tax preparer, but cops have said that may have been a ruse.

Police ask anyone with information about the case to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.

larry.celona@nypost.com