A Staten Island woman’s toxic ex-boyfriend stabbed her friend to death during a sleepover at her home after a night of drinking — leaving the slain man’s son fatherless.
Jonathan Griffin murdered 25-year-old Kycell Terry during the early hours of July 2, even though Terry was no more than platonic friends with Griffin’s ex, according to prosecutors and the dead man’s relatives.
Griffin was on the loose for more than a month before being arrested Aug. 10. Cops driving on Bay St. spotted him enjoying a slice outside a pizzeria near the Staten Island ferry terminal and recognized him as the man wanted for Terry’s fatal stabbing.
Terry’s mother says she believed Griffin was behind her son’s murder long before there was an arrest.
“I knew it was him because there was nobody else out there to do anything to my son. He’s the only guy out there jealous of my son,” said Terry’s mother, Tisha Milton. “He always thinks that my son wants his girl. (Terry) wasn’t there for that. They were just friends.”
Terry met Griffin several years ago while he was dating Griffin’s ex-girlfriend’s sister, Milton said. After less than a year of dating, Terry split from that woman but maintained a friendship with both sisters.
“Kycell and her will just be regular 20-something-year-olds living their best lives, conversing with each other as they should, because they’re in the same age group,” Milton said of her son’s friendship with his accused killer’s ex. “Jonathan would just sit back with a side eye, looking and saying things like, ‘Get away from him.’”
Milton said her son was well aware Griffin didn’t like him but was “unbothered” by the man’s loathing.
Court records show Griffin’s ex had a restraining order against him for at least a year.
Kycell Terry was fatally stabbed inside this Ann St. apartment building near Park Ave. in Port Richmond, Staten Island, on July 2. (Google)
Despite the court order forbidding the pair from contacting each other, Griffin spent the night of July 1 drinking with his ex and Terry, meeting at the woman’s home on Ann St. near Park Ave. before going out on the town, according to police sources and Terry’s younger cousin.
“We were having a lot of fun and everything was chill. And then, I don’t know what happened,” said Terry’s cousin, Nahseem, 19, who was with the trio at the woman’s house before the trio headed out without him.
“Kycell and I were playing Fortnite and one of Kycell’s favorite games, Ninja Storm 4. Jonathan came but he was just watching.”
“They were all chilling, laughing, but then they went out to party or whatever. Well, Kycell and her — and then Jonathan followed after them,” he added. “I told Kycell, ‘Be safe’ and that was it.”
After they returned home and Griffin’s ex fell asleep, Griffin repeatedly stabbed Terry in the stomach with a “sharp instrument” some time between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. July 2, according to the criminal complaint.
Griffin’s ex-girlfriend said she slept through the vicious attack and awoke about 7:00 a.m. to find her friend lying dead in a pool of blood and her ex-boyfriend gone.
“She went straight to bed,” the woman’s mother told the Daily News. “When she woke up, Kycell was dead.”
Nahseem crashed at Terry’s apartment nine blocks away from the woman’s home. The next morning he went back to her place, looking for his older cousin.
“I just see [Griffin’s ex-girlfriend] crying outside and I see a bunch of (police) tape outside. She said, ‘Kycell’s dead,’” the teen recalled. “I genuinely couldn’t believe it because we were just having fun and stuff and then the next thing. I wake up in the morning, I find out that he’s gone.”
Griffin, who lives just a few blocks away from his ex, was hit with charges including murder, criminal contempt and weapon possession . A Staten Island Criminal Court judge ordered him held without bail during his Tuesday arraignment.
“I hope he rots … or your life gets taken more viciously than my son’s life got taken,” Milton said of Griffin. “You took somebody from me that I could never get back.”
Kycell leaves behind a 1-year-old son.
“Now my grandson is being raised without a father, because of some senseless bulls–t,” Milton said.
Terry “dedicated his whole life around his son,” who gave him a second chance at being a father five years after his daughter died at just 3 months old, Milton said.
“He’s looking for his dad,” she said of the baby. “He’s looking out the window every day, going ‘Da da, da da.’ He’s looking for my son to come home.”
Terry juggled several jobs in warehouses for FedEx and Amazon and had recently accepted a gig with the city Sanitation Department.
“He was supposed to start on the 5th but his life was cut short on the 2nd,” Milton said. “He was ecstatic. He wanted to make a better life for him and his family.
Milton, who has a heart condition, said Terry also worked as her home health aide.
“He would come here [to Brooklyn], then he would leave at 3 or 4 a.m. to go to work on Staten Island,” she said. “My son was dedicated to making sure I was good, my sister was good, any older woman, cousins, anybody. He had a good heart.”
When Terry wasn’t working he loved writing and producing rap music under the stage name Chucky Billionaire.
“My son rapped about enjoying life. He’s been doing it since he was like 13, 14,” she said. “The only way I hear my son now is through his music. And he left me with music. [I’ve been listening] every day. I play his music and I look at his picture.”
Milton buried her son on July 18, which would have been his 26th birthday.
Terry had a brush with the law in February 2024, when he was caught on video striking a person he’d been arguing with before a man he was with pulled a gun and opened fire on that person, according to court records.
Hoping to connect Terry to the weapon, prosecutors sought a warrant to collect a DNA sample from him but a judge declined to grant their request since the footage never showed him handling the weapon. Terry was initially charged with criminal possession of a weapon but later got a conditional discharge for reckless endangerment.
Griffin has a criminal record that includes 22 arrests dating back to 2002. At least three of his most recent arrests involved his ex-girlfriend.
On April 3, Griffin broke into the ex-girlfriend’s apartment, violating the order of protection she had against him. He then slapped his ex in the back of the head, according to the criminal complaint. He was arrested for burglary, criminal contempt, and harassment.
One month earlier, Griffin banged on his ex’s apartment door at 4:00 a.m., yelling, ‘Let me in!’ and was arrested for criminal contempt.
On November 8, he threw a rock and shattered the same woman’s apartment window. She was struck by a shard of glass, which cut her ear, according to the criminal complaint.
“Yeah, I threw the rock! I don’t give a s–y. I’m gonna get out anyway!” Griffin yelled to her window, according to prosecutors. He was charged with assault, harassment, and criminal contempt.
Those three cases are still pending in Staten Island Criminal Court.
Griffin’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment. He is set to return to court on August 25 in the murder case.
Griffin’s ex-girlfriend’s mother described the killer as a moody man who had, on some occasions, verbally abused her daughter right in front of her.
“I can’t figure him out sometimes. Some days he’s nice; some days he wants to argue, scream, yell,” she said. “He was the jealous type. He was jealous of all of us. He was jealous of each and every person that came around my daughter.”
With Rocco Parascandola and John Annese