It was just after 1 p.m. on a hot July afternoon when Brigitte Harris walked out of her Rockaway home without locking the door. Cell phone in hand, she headed toward the nearest police station, but stopped a block short of the 100th Precinct. Back at her cozy, third-floor apartment, where she regularly hosted informal parties, her father, Eric Goodridge, was dying. Goodridge was a native of Liberia who spent much of his adult life moving back and forth from Monrovia to Staten Island. On this stint in the U.S., he was attending to a host of medical problems. At 55, he could barely walk, plagued by infected keloids on his legs, as well as kidney stones and a failing liver. But these were not the ailments that would ultimately kill him. Harris dialed 911 as she walked away and asked that an ambulance be sent to her address. Someone was bleeding to death on the third floor, she told the operator. EMTs arrived at a chilling scene. Eric lay with a towel wrapped around his head and stuffed into his mouth, strangled to death. A table had been broken in a scuffle. Nearby was a scalpel that the 26-year-old Harris had bought on eBay just a few weeks before—a tool that friends believe was originally meant for her own suicide. But it was her father's blood that was slowly, steadily pooling under him. He had been castrated, and the severed penis was missing.What did remain were notes that hinted at a history of sexual abuse. "He wrecked my life," read one. "At first, I blamed myself. Now I know it's not my fault," another reportedly said.

Half an hour later, Harris was still on the line with a 911 operator, wanting to know what was going on at her home and if her father was still alive. When the operator asked what happened, Harris was reticent. "Forget it," she replied. She said only that she was not thinking straight. That she needed to talk to her sister. Carleen Goodridge and Brigitte Harris, born three years apart, grew up in a sprawling and deeply divided family, traumatized by infidelity, abandonment, rape, war, and now murder. As the elder sibling, Carleen has been both an enemy and a champion for Brigitte. The two battled over whether or not to confront their father about his abuse of them. "My sister, she just always wanted to talk about it. She wanted help. She wanted people to know what he was doing," Carleen says, but "I wouldn't allow her to talk about it. That's what divided us."

In the aftermath of her father's murder, Carleen has been talking a lot. She launched a public-relations campaign to "Save Brigitte." Within 36 hours of the murder, she had hired star defense attorney Arthur Aidala and told the world that both she and Brigitte had been victims of a pedophile father who regularly and repeatedly raped them from a very young age. Within a week, Carleen had set up a website collecting donations for a defense fund and had held press conferences to round up support. The murder of their "monster" father was simply karma, she told Montel Williams and audiences at a candlelight vigil. If Brigitte snapped, she implied, it was their father who had pushed her. Thanks to Carleen's efforts, a small crowd of supporters have lined up behind Brigitte, including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and New York State Senators Eric Adams and Diane Savino. In addition to shining a spotlight on the case—which may help Brigitte win a lenient sentence—one has also directly assisted Carleen professionally. She was hired as Savino's executive assistant last month, which provided a much-needed income and direction for the struggling single mom.

Meanwhile, as the case heads toward trial—the plea agreement that the defense had hoped for has yet to materialize—Brigitte's family has become increasingly polarized. Carleen and her maternal relatives have portrayed Brigitte as a victim who finally snapped, while Eric's side of the family denies any sexual abuse and say the sisters planned their father's murder for ulterior motives. The family split was apparent during a court date last month. Seven members of Eric's family traveled from Rhode Island and Colorado to attend a brief hearing at Queens Criminal Court, where they exchanged information and hugs with the prosecutor. Carleen was notably absent; in her place was an advocate from a domestic-violence nonprofit that helps those in trouble for retaliating against their abusers. Lawyers have asked for more time to review evidence before returning to court on January 4.

He should have been her protector, but instead her father was her tormentor, sexually abusing 26-year-old Brigitte Harris since she was 3 years old, the woman's lawyer told the Daily News yesterday. "This guy was a monster," said Arthur Aidala, who represents Harris, the woman cops say cuffed, asphyxiated and sexually mutilated her father, Eric Goodridge, after luring him to her Rockaways apartment on Saturday. The former airport security guard is expected to be charged later this week by the Queens district attorney. Police have not been able to interview Harris, who checked into a Staten Island psychiatric ward Saturday.

Aidala declined to discuss what took place in his client's apartment. Goodridge, 55, was already dead when his penis was cut off, sources said. Police have not recovered his genitals. Aidala said his client had survived a horrific childhood. Harris, who called herself the Original Dark Angel and Lady Vengeance on her Web site, had been repeatedly molested by Goodridge since she was a little girl, he added. "He first tried to rape her when she was age 3, but her older and younger brother broke it up," said Aidala, who spoke with Harris at length yesterday at the Richmond University Medical Center psych ward. "He was the person who should have protected her - but didn't," Aidala said. Harris' mother returned to her native Liberia when the girl was 2 years old. She was raised by her father, or distant relatives when Goodridge himself went back to Liberia for months at a time, the lawyer said. She was at Goodridge's mercy until she became a teenager and moved out, Aidala said. "Many people in the family knew and did nothing," he said. Harris was not the only family member Goodridge molested, the lawyer alleged. Police sources said they had no evidence of the alleged abuse, "but clearly this young woman felt that she had been abused and was taking action," one said.

Police yesterday sought a warrant for Harris to supply DNA samples. Some of Harris' relatives said claims of abuse were the fantasies of a twisted mind. Harris and her father had been spotted walking in the vicinity of her Queens apartment an hour before Harris called 911, police sources said. Goodridge had appeared intoxicated. Harris placed two 911 calls - first alerting the operator to a "man bleeding to death on third floor of the house." When an operator called back to tell Harris to stay there to open the door, Harris said she had left the door open, sources said. Harris later called the operator back asking, "How's Eric?" Her troubled tale has elicited an outpouring of support from friends and strangers writing to Harris' MySpace Web page. Her online profile still describes her mood as "depressed," and the vengeful metal song "Ghostflowers" continues to play: "I will be avenged. These are the secrets that kill...." A 40-year-old woman who identified herself as Wizdom wrote: "Only GOD can judge you and vengeance is his. ... Keep your head up my sistah, wish I would have known you. Wish I could have helped you."

Brigitte Harris' sister Carleen Goodridge claimed their father molested her from about age 4 to 12, and assaulted Harris from age 3 until about age 18. Just days before their father's mutilated body was found, a Queens woman told her older sister her life had been ruined by the sexual abuse they both suffered at his hands. "She couldn't love anyone, she was broken," Brigitte Harris told her older sister Carleen Goodridge. "Basically, I told her she had to deal with it, get past it," Goodridge, 29, recalled. "I was the one person who should have understood and helped - and didn't." A few days later, their father, Eric Goodridge, 55, was found bound, gagged and asphyxiated in Harris' Rockaways apartment. Police believe Harris, 26, not only strangled her father, but sliced off his genitals with surgical blades she had bought a month earlier on eBay, sources said. A bloody blade was recovered at the scene, and cops sought a DNA sample from Harris, who checked into a Staten Island psychiatric ward soon after the body was found. "She's lost," Goodridge said during an interview yesterday at the Manhattan office of Harris' lawyer Arthur Aidala. Goodridge said she wanted to make up for her silence by going public: "This was rape. This was intercourse. This was penetration." Goodridge claimed their father molested her from about age 4 to 12, and assaulted Harris from age 3 until about age 18.

"I went through the same darn thing as her and did nothing," said Goodridge, a mother of three. She said Harris told their estranged mother about the allegations during a trip to the family's native Liberia when Harris was 18. The girl's mom and pastor then confronted Eric Goodridge, who dismissed the allegations as lies. "He told me about it," Goodridge said. "I had no response. That was my opportunity and I didn't speak up." Friends said Harris, who referred to herself on her Web site as Lady Vengeance and the Original Dark Angel, had been planning suicide. She had taken off two weeks from work starting last Friday, the day before her father's body was found in her apartment. She had canceled her DIRECTV service, bought surgical blades with metal handles on the Internet and stockpiled sleeping pills, according to sources and Harris' recent eBay purchases. Police said they had no evidence of sexual assault, but believe the crime was motivated by Harris' desire for revenge. Goodridge set up a Web site to raise money for her sister's legal defense: www.savebridget.com

The father of - a young woman whose online identity was the "Original Dark Angel" - was an incestuous "monster" who allegedly sexually abused and raped his child from the time she was 3, her lawyer claimed yesterday. The explosive claim from Arthur Aidala, the lawyer for Brigitte Harris, 26, came as she remained under 72-hour hold at Bayley Seaton hospital in Staten Island.

Eric Goodridge's strangled body was found bound in Harris' Far Rockaway, Queens apartment Saturday, handcuffed, his pants down, a rag around his neck and tape over his mouth. A scissors and scalpel were found in the apartment, though police aren't sure which instrument was used to cut off Goodridge's penis -- a castration that apparently occurred after Goodridge, 55, died. "There is ample evidence of long-term and systematic sexual abuse and rape by the deceased," said Aidala, who called his client "a sweet young girl who was subjected to a monster."