After more than 15 years of evading justice for the murder of Zandera Sullivan, a former Mattapan resident today admitted to stabbing the Jamaica Plain man to death in what prosecutors called a deadly act of domestic violence, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

PATRICK ANTHONY BROWN (D.O.B. 9/12/73), also known as DERRICK MALLOY, pleaded guilty to the crimes of second-degree murder and armed home invasion as his trial was scheduled to begin in Suffolk Superior Court this morning. He faces a mandatory life term when Judge Judith Fabricant sentences him tomorrow morning.

In a hearing this morning, Brown admitted to the May 29, 1995, incident, which claimed Sullivan’s life at his girlfriend’s Seaver Street home. That woman had ended her romantic relationship with Brown a few months earlier.

“Mr. Sullivan’s murder is proof that domestic violence doesn’t just hurt intimate partners,” Conley said. “It can claim people outside the abusive relationship as well. Its victims can be children, parents, and even strangers.”

Conley urged victims of any crime, including intimate partner violence, to call 911 in an emergency. SafeLink, a statewide domestic violence hotline, can be reached at 877-785-2020. SafeLink is answered by trained advocates 24 hours a day in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, as well as TTY at 877-521-2601. It also has the capacity to provide multilingual translation in more than 140 languages. 

Had Brown’s case proceeded to trial, Assistant District Attorney Gretchen Lundgren of the DA’s Homicide Unit would have introduced evidence and testimony proving that Brown went to his former girlfriend’s Seaver Street apartment building, walked up to her fourth floor apartment, and knocked on the door, asking to be let in. When she did not let him in, evidence would have shown, Brown went to the back door of the apartment, forced his way in, and made his way to her bedroom, where he encountered her and Sullivan.

“At that point, the defendant pulled out a knife from the waistband of his pants,” Lundgren said today. Upon seeing the knife, the male victim got up and ran out of the apartment through the back door. 

“At that point in time, the defendant chased Mr. Sullivan with the knife in his hand,” Lundgren said. Moments later, Sullivan was found in the apartment building vestibule suffering from a severed carotid artery and jugular vein; he died as a result of those injuries. 

Shortly after the fatal stabbing, investigators obtained a warrant charging Brown with murder. Brown left the United States before he could be arrested. In the 15 years that followed, the Boston Police Department’s Fugitive Unit, its Cold Case Squad, the U.S. Marshals Service, and a series of Suffolk homicide prosecutors worked relentlessly to track Brown’s flight to Jamaica and several South American countries. They were aided in 2009 by the television program America’s Most Wanted.

Those efforts led investigators to Belize early last year, and Brown was taken into custody in that nation on Feb. 9, 2010.

“His flight spanned more than a decade and at least five countries,” Conley said. “But it ended in a Suffolk County courtroom.”

Sentencing is scheduled for 9:00 tomorrow morning in courtroom 907. Catherine Rodriguez is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Brown is represented by attorney Scott Curtis.