Khalid Barrow, a young man of 24 years old, was arrested and charged with the murder of his cousin Nisaa Walcott (35), whose body was found inside a storage container near the NY Yankees stadium, on Friday in the Bronx.
The mother of 35 years old, a resident of East Harlem, had been missing for days. He suffered bruises and broken bones consistent with strangulation, according to lurid new details revealed in court Sunday, the New York Post reported.
On Friday afternoon, the police found the body of Walcott inside a clear plastic container on a Bronx sidewalk, with bruises on her back and a broken hyoid bone, indicating she had been pushed to the ground and suffocated. His ankles had also been bound, Manhattan prosecutors said.
Barrow was charged on suspicion of killing his cousin and then hiding the body for at least a week, before police caught him trying to dump the container on a sidewalk on Friday. The corpse was folded inside the container, along with assorted clothing and several pairs of plastic-wrapped flip-flops.
Supposedly he put the corpse in the container and dragged himself to the roof of the building in East Harlem on February 18 and only tried to get rid of it after police contacted him on Thursday 24, according to Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Clerkin.
Walcott had not been view from 16 February, when his son from 14 years old he received text messages purportedly from her saying she was leaving him in the care of her cousin Barrow, prosecutor Clerkin said.
The teen returned from school that day and found her cousin cleaning the apartment, which reeked of bleach, according to prosecutors. After a week, in which Barrow used Walcott’s credit card and continued to impersonate her through text messages, family members realized he had her phone and reported her missing.
Judge James Burke ordered that Barrow be held without bail on Sunday after his brief appearance, during which the suspect did not speak. His next court date is March 4.
The motive for the crime is not clear. Family and friends of Walcott and Barrow, including a man who covered his ears with his fingers as prosecutors described Walcott’s injuries, refused to speak outside the courtroom. “He’s crazy,” said someone who identified himself as “a cousin.”