Dad Kills Baby For Laughing Then Feeds The Body To A Pit Bull

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Her name was Serenity — something she barely knew in her short life.

Serenity Brown, just shy of her second birthday, was possibly beaten to death by her father, then sliced up and fed to a pit bull in July 2006, according to law enforcement sources and documents. But authorities didn’t learn about the giggly toddler’s disappearance until five years later — and are still trying to close the ghastly cold case in which a body was never found and no suspect ever arrested.

City social workers discovered the child was missing during a 2011 visit, and cops opened an investigation into her mother’s claims about the horrors that went down in a Brooklyn apartment. Little Serenity was listening to her mother, Paula Johnson, read a story inside their Canarsie apartment when, according to Johnson, her ex-con dad, Edward (Chuck) Brown, flew into a rage over the child’s laughter, law enforcement sources said.

A single punch to the chest left the helpless baby unresponsive, Johnson told investigators. Johnson claimed Brown snatched Serenity’s limp body from the mom’s arms, carried his daughter into the bathroom, put her in the tub and filled it with water, sources said. He allegedly fetched a knife from the kitchen, turned up the volume on the radio and told Johnson to stay in the bedroom before carving up the dead child, sources said.

Johnson told investigators Brown then fed the girl’s remains to a pit bull, a source said. An anonymous caller last year claimed the crime was covered up when Brown then executed the dog. The start of the probe was delayed for five years, as investigators only learned about Serenity’s disappearance in October 2011. Social workers visited the mom’s new address 5 miles away in Flatbush after a report that Johnson, 35, was keeping her 12-year-old son home from school.

While at the Coney Island Ave. home, the workers came to the horrible realization that Serenity — while listed as receiving public assistance — was nowhere to be found, records from the Administration for Children’s Services show. Johnson initially claimed Serenity was with her paternal grandmother in Alabama before coming clean about her daughter’s gruesome demise.

The mother claimed Brown, 34, killed the child and “they had discarded the body,” according to the ACS documents. Serenity’s paternal grandmother, Alfreddia Norris, told the Daily News that the NYPD came to her Alabama home looking for Serenity in 2011. Norris, whose son lives nearby, said she hadn’t seen the baby since the girl was 3 months old. “I’d like to know what happened to her,” said Norris. “Where is she?”

The grandmother defended her son against the homicide allegations, suggesting the mother was to blame. “Why did she say that and then say that he had her down here?” Norris said. “She’s the one folks need to be talking to.” Repeated attempts to reach Serenity’s parents were unsuccessful. Neither has been charged with a crime.