Bad Genes: Joseph and Nicholas Brooks

 

Joseph Brooks doesn't exactly look like the picture of a "cover-boy" of romantic music. Nonetheless, he wrote the hit song "You Light Up My World", besides producing and directing the 1977-drama of the same name, all of which brought him fame and wealth. Also, he composed e.g. "Blue Balloon" as well as jingles for e.g. Pepsi and Maxwell House. However, somewhere along the road he seems to have turned from a well-known and appreciated song-writer into a detestable criminal: A serial rapist. The winner of an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Grammy Award ended up committing suicide before his trial for rape in 2011. When that happened, his son, Nicholas, was also facing prison for a serious crime, namely murder.

Nicholas Brooks

Looking quite cute, the son of Joseph Brooks, Nicholas, led a happy-go-lucky playboy-life. He never had any kind of career after he dropped out of college, and didn't seem to want to commit himself to anything but drugs. They were the true "love of his life", but in 2010 the charming, young man (24 years old) caught the eye of the Peruvian-American swimsuit designer, Sylvie Cachay (1977-2010). They bonded after one of her dogs was hit by a car, and he comforted and helped her after the accident. Contrary to him, she was a successful woman with a fine career as a fashion designer. She was the one who headed the swimsuit designing team of Victoria's Secret, which was one of her many achievements that cemented her fame in the world of fashion. 

They became a couple in 2010, but their relationship met with many difficulties, and it seems to have been an off-on affair for most of the time. She was a success - as well as somewhat older than him - but he was a failure, with economic problems and no real plans of solving them. He didn't have a good relationship with his father, even though he was the one who paid for his volatile life-style. 

On December 9, 2010, Sylvie was found strangled and drowned in a bathtub at the Soho House where the couple was staying at the time. At that time, they had been together for six months, but she may have made it clear to him that she wanted out of their relationship, which could be the trigger that turned him into a murderer. Anyway, he was convicted of murdering her, and on September 23, 2013, he was sentenced to 25 years to life. 

What went wrong with this father and son? That's anybody's guess ....

 

https://nypost.com/tag/nicholas-brooks/ 

 

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112072/  

 

https://nymag.com/news/features/71271/ 

 

Wikipedia