Man Charged in Mother's Death Had Been "Acting Strange" Police said Sylvia Scott's body was found on Monday, wrapped in garbage bags, in her apartment in Hammels, Queens. Sylvia Scott was a constant, calming force in her son's life. In times of trouble - whether emotional, criminal or financial - she was there for him. So when he began to act strangely on Sunday, and emergency workers took him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, Ms. Scott went to the hospital and insisted that he be released to her custody, according to the son's girlfriend. "I'm bringing him home," Ms. Scott, 60, told the girlfriend during a phone call at about 4:30 p.m. on Sunday from St. John's Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway, Queens. Less than 24 hours later, on Monday afternoon, police officers found Ms. Scott's body wrapped in garbage bags in her Hammels, Queens, apartment - stabbed to death, investigators believe, by her son, Lonnie Corey Scott III. Mr. Scott, 35, was arrested on murder charges on Tuesday in the death of his mother, who worked for nearly 32 years as a civilian employee of the New York Police Department's transit bureau. Police and hospital officials would not describe their initial encounter with Mr. Scott on Sunday, or the circumstances of his release from the hospital later that day. Penny Chin, a spokeswoman for St. John's, said only that the hospital was "cooperating with the authorities in every way we can." This was not the first time that Mr. Scott found himself accused by the police in a violent stabbing. In 2006, prosecutors charged him with attempted murder after he repeatedly stabbed a woman who was his girlfriend at the time, plunging a knife into her throat. When police officers arrived, they found him naked and covered in blood on the front lawn of the woman's home, the police said. Mr. Scott had told an officer that "he was trying to kill" the woman and "was hoping that she died," according to the criminal complaint filed by the Queens district attorney. Yet Ms. Scott believed that her son was innocent, and that he was the victim. His former girlfriend came after him with a knife, and he was forced to defend himself, according to Mr. Scott's father, Lonnie Scott Jr. Edward Muccini, who was Lonnie Corey Scott III's lawyer at the time, said that the violence was preceded by the couple's use of drugs, and that it "became a self-defense case." Mr. Scott was convicted on a lesser charge of assault. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and was released in 2010 - once again to his mother's care. In recent weeks, Mr. Scott's father said, his son hit a rough patch: he lost his janitorial job at Mount Sinai Medical Center, had a fight with his live-in girlfriend in Brooklyn, and had to have his car towed. "At times he gets into a rage, he holds things inside and he cries," Mr. Scott's father, 59, said by telephone from the funeral parlor where he was making burial arrangements for Ms. Scott. The elder Mr. Scott said that when he last saw his son, they hugged and said they loved each other. The hours between Saturday night and the time that police officers arrived to find Ms. Scott's body remained somewhat murky. A woman who identified herself as Mr. Scott's current girlfriend said he had been "acting strange" all weekend. The woman, who did not want to be named, said Mr. Scott went to a sporting event on Saturday night and came back to their Brooklyn home early Sunday. She grew unsettled by his odd behavior and asked him to leave, she said during an interview on Tuesday. On Sunday afternoon, Ms. Scott called her son's girlfriend from the hospital. Her son, Ms. Scott explained, had been briefly detained earlier by the police as he walked on the causeway in the Rockaways; upon his release, he had grabbed a woman off the streets and dragged her into a police station house. He had accused the woman of having kidnapped his mother. The girlfriend said that the police then drove Mr. Scott to his mother's home so they could check on her. Finding Ms. Scott safe, they left him in her care. Soon after, however, Mr. Scott called 911 and told emergency workers, "My mind is bugging out, my mind is crazy." He was taken by ambulance to St. John's, the girlfriend said. After he was released to his mother, the girlfriend said she went to Ms. Scott's house on Shorefront Parkway at about 8:30 p.m. on Sunday to check on Mr. Scott. He was asleep, the girlfriend said. She last spoke with him on Monday morning, about two hours before the police discovered the murder. The police went to Ms. Scott's house after her sister went to Ms. Scott's office looking for her. "I told him he was acting crazy," the girlfriend said. "He said, "I don't know what's going on with me, but my mom did what she wanted to do." "