Son held in death of NYC dad, girlfriend and 5-year-old was ‘hearing voices’ and babysitting half-brother hours before triple stabbing: police

The 19-year-old man suspected in a gruesome triple slaying in the Bronx claimed he was “hearing voices” — and was babysitting his 5-year-old half-brother just hours before cops believe he stabbed the boy and his parents to death, a police official said Tuesday.

The suspect, identified as Jayden Rivera, an upstate college student, was being held at the psychiatric ward of Westchester Medical Center, where he spontaneously told medical staff that he “did something bad and that he had killed somebody,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a news briefing.

Investigators were working on gathering probable cause and expect to charge the troubled teen with the murders of his father Jonathan Rivera, his dad’s girlfriend, Hanoi Peralta, and the couple’s young son, Kayden Rivera — whose butchered bodies were discovered at their Mott Haven apartment building early Sunday, Kenny said.

Prior to the stabbings, the suspect had told his mother that “he was hearing voices,” Kenny told reporters.

“Later on, when he returned home, he stated to his mother again that he was hearing voices and that he thought that Mr. Rivera and Ms. Peralta were going to hurt him.”

The teen was babysitting little Kayden while their dad and his girlfriend were out on a “paint and sip” date Saturday night as they patched up their relationship.

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But Kenny said at two points during the night neighbors heard someone in the hallway screaming the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish and heard a man and woman screaming around 2 a.m. Sunday.

At around 6:40 a.m. Sunday, police responding to a 911 call discovered Rivera, 38, in a pool of blood in the first-floor hallway of 33-year-old Peralta’s building at 674 East 136th Street, with stab wounds to the chest.

Police rushed into the apartment and found Peralta in a bedroom, also dead with multiple stab wounds, cops said. Her and Rivera’s young son was discovered on an air mattress stabbed once in the chest and eight times in the torso to the point that he was “disemboweled,” Kenny said.

Police recovered a small kitchen knife and a dented pot at the scene, Kenny said.

“It appears that after they were stabbed, the victims were beaten with [a] pot to the point that it was dented,” the chief said.

Police sources said the bloodied teen later showed up to his mom’s Bronx apartment and she called 911.

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He was brought by EMS to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where he remained Tuesday, though sources said he was expected to be transferred to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

The slain tot’s grandfather, Miguel Rivera, 60, said there weren’t any signs of turmoil in the family and that Jonathan Rivera never played favorites with his four children — including the eldest son now suspected of killing him.

“I don’t see never like a jealous thing in Jayden,” he told The Post on Tuesday. “I never seen Jonathan take one side to the other one. No, no, no. Never. Nobody takes a side.

“Last year we were here for Thanksgiving and Jayden was here and he was playing.”

The grieving granddad added: “My heart is broken for my baby, my youngest grandson.”

“I feel this is not supposed to happen,” he said. “The day they told me I was thinking this was like a movie or something. But, no. Now it’s real.”

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A family friend said Jonathan Rivera and Peralta split up about a year ago but were patching things up in recent months — and were on a date night at a “paint and sip” party the night before they were killed.

Eusebio Baez, who said he’d known Rivera for 20 years, said the dad of four held two jobs, including as a janitor at Kayden’s school, to spoil the boy.

He said Jayden Rivera is a student at SUNY Oswego after earning a scholarship to the state school, and that Jonathan also had two older daughters who live in Connecticut.

Baez recalled how how his old friend doted over Kayden and the boy’s mother, saying that “he loved that woman so much.”

“Such a sweet guy with such a golden heart,” Baez said. “Didn’t come from a lot, didn’t have a lot, but sacrificed everything for his kids.”

Additional reporting by Jack Morphet