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Bronx Teen Who Admitted Killing Mom May Be Linked to Second Bat Assault

By  Trevor Kapp and Dan Rivoli | September 28, 2012 3:06pm 

THE BRONX — The 16-year-old who admitted brutally slaying his mother Thursday may be linked to an earlier assault that put a Bronx auto shop employee in a coma, police said.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Friday that Darwin Jackson could be connected to a Sept.15 attack on an employee at Auto Clinica, a car repair shop a block from the 1447 Macombs Rd. apartment where the teen told police he shot and beat his mother, 34-year-old Tihesha Savage.

After Jackson was arrested on Wednesday in his mother's death, employees of a second nearby auto body shop named him as the one who hit the comatose victim in the head with a baseball bat earlier in the month. 

“The possibility has surfaced it may have been this man who did it,” Kelly said of the accused teen killer. “The individual who was assaulted is still in a coma, so we haven't been able to talk to him, but it is an allegation that has not been substantiated.”

''Obviously the investigation is open. We would hope to talk to the victim,” Kelly added. “We're not excluding [Jackson], but he hasn't been charged [in the Sept. 15 attack].''

Jackson is already facing charges of second-degree manslaughter, murder and criminal possession of a weapon after admitting to police that he beat Savage with a baseball bat after shooting her, according to his criminal complaint, which lists his first name as "Dee."

“I took my loaded gun [and] shot at her while she was sleeping in her bed," Jackson told police, according to the criminal complaint.

"After I fired, I saw her body twitch, she tried to get up and then I started hitting her in the head with a wooden bat numerous times," he added.

Savage’s body was found stuffed in a plastic bin and dragged onto Macombs Road Wednesday morning. Jackson was arrested hours later.

Employees at Cholo Transmission & Auto Repair, a few doors down from the Inwood Avenue shop where the comatose victim worked, believe Jackson was the culprit in the earlier attack as well, after a fight started over a bicycle.

“A month ago, [Jackson] came by and slammed a door," said a mechanic at Cholo, who did not give his name. "The mechanics asked him what was up. He started fighting them."

The boss at Cholo said all of the mechanics went to a nearby precinct to make a police report on Sept. 21.