"He seemed okay, but you knew he wasn't all there,"

Son held in slay of mom Librarian savagely beaten while sleeping in her West Islip home BY RICHARD WEIR DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Medical personnel remove body of Susanne Carlson after she was brutally beaten to death with rifle butt. Christopher Carlson (above) is held in death of mom (below). A 70-year-old West Islip librarian was bludgeoned to death by her son, who bashed her head in with a rifle butt as she lay in bed early yesterday, cops said. Officers called to the Fire Island Ave. home at 3:10 a.m. found the nightgown-clad body of Susanne Carlson still under her bedsheets in her first-floor bedroom. Her 39-year-old son, Christopher, who had phoned police minutes earlier, stood at the front door and calmly directed cops to where they could find his mother's body. When calling 911, he said "that he had just beaten his mother with a rifle," said Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, head of the Suffolk police homicide squad. Carlson was charged with second-degree murder. His brother Erik was home during the slaying but told police he did not hear anything from his second-floor bedroom. "He slept through the entire event and was awakened by police," Fitzpatrick said. Fitzpatrick said that Christopher Carlson, who also lived at the home, used the rifle's butt to crush his mom's head. "She was severely beaten ... It was a messy scene," he said, adding that the alleged killer greeted the officers in clothes splattered with his mother's blood. Fitzpatrick said the son was "noncommunicative" and did not provide a motive for why he killed his mother. Susanne Carlson, a single mother who raised five children, worked for 33 years as a librarian for the West Islip Public Library, rising through the ranks from clerk to head of its technical services department. "She was one of our key employees ... a really nice, warm lady. A hard worker," library director Andrew Hamm said. "It's tragic. It's been hard on the staff." Carlson had worked Sunday until 5 p.m. filling in at the children's section of the library. Neighbors described her as a "role model" on their block who was a devout Catholic and a devoted mother and grandmother. "She was just one beautiful person ... a real angel. She was really loved by all the neighbors," said Monenna Kennedy, 70. "Her religion was her strength." Christopher Carlson, according to neighbors, was a loner who battled alcohol and other substance abuse problems. They said Christopher Carlson told them he was a Persian Gulf War veteran and that he had contracted Lyme disease, which he said went undiagnosed for some time and caused him to suffer seizures. Kennedy's daughter Tracy, who lives next-door to the Carlsons, said Christopher seemed like a polite but "simple" man who on occasion was helpful to his neighbors. "He seemed okay, but you knew he wasn't all there," shesaid. "He had two daughters who lived with their mother. ... I feel sorry for them. They've lost a father and a grandmother." Originally published on October 10, 2006