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Man Who Stabbed Ex-Girlfriend Was In Middle of Custody Battle, Mother Says

 Left: Trevial Terry and Alicia Sylvia. Right: One of the weapons Terry used to attack one of his victims on Monday.
Left: Trevial Terry and Alicia Sylvia. Right: One of the weapons Terry used to attack one of his victims on Monday.
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DNAinfo; DCPI

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS —  The man charged with stabbing his ex-girlfriend and two co-workers Monday was in a the middle of a custody battle when he launched the attack, according to his mother.

Trevial Terry — who was arrested Monday after police said he stabbed his ex-girlfriend and struck two Con Edison colleagues with an axe and a hammer — had gone to court Friday because his former girlfriend was asking for more child support for their 8 year-old son, Terry's mother said.

“When he came back (from court) on Friday he had a migraine and from that migraine he started throwing up. He told me ’mom my stomach is just knots,’” his mother Florida Peggy-Terry, 74, said on Tuesday.

“He didn't go to sleep on Thursday night, neither did he go to sleep on Friday."

Terry, 40, who grew up in North Carolina and came to the city after graduating from high school, left the Washington Heights apartment he shares with his mother at about 10 a.m. on Saturday, she said.

"That’s the last time I saw him," she said, adding it was not unusual for him to stay at a friends’ place for several days.

"I don't understand what happened. He's not like that. He's a decent, loving man who would give you the last penny out of his pocket. That's the kind of person he is. He's a loving father."

Terry met his former girlfriend, identified by his mother and by sources as Alicia Sylvia, in 2004 and they stayed together for approximately nine years.  

"She is a nice person," Terry's mother said of Sylvia, 35, "We would go shopping together, we would gossip on the phone." 

Terry and Sylvia broke up roughly a year ago but they still talked and shared the custody of their son, Terry's mother said.

"(Terry) would take (his son) bowling, they would go golfing at Pier 59 in Chelsea, they would go running up the hills together. He loves his son."

On Monday afternoon, Terry pushed the mother of his child inside her office building at 135 East 64th street and stabbed her several times in the abdomen and in the lower back, police said.

Sylvia, who works as a grants and office manager at the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, was transferred to New York Presbyterian Hospital in serious but stable condition, officials said.

Roughly 20 minutes later, at approximately 2:20 p.m., Terry, who has been working for Con Edison for 15 years as a commercial service representative, went to the company's headquarters at 4 Irving Plaza and struck two of his colleagues, the NYPD said.

He first struck a 49-year-old worker in the face and, when a 40-year-old man tried to stop him, he struck him in the arm with a pointed tip hammer, police said. 

Terry then tried to flee through the parking lot but was caught before he could leave the facility. His colleagues were transferred to Bellevue Hospital in stable conditions, officials said.

Terry was also transferred to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric observation, sources said.

Terry, who has a bachelor degree from Hunter College and was in the process of getting a master degree, was not getting along with one of his supervisors at Con Edison, his mother said. 

It was not unclear if that supervisor was one of the men Terry attacked on Monday afternoon. 

Police charged Terry with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

He was waiting arraignment on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney's office said. 

A family member who was with Sylvia at the hospital on Tuesday declined to comment.

Additional Reporting by Gwynnes Hogan.