FLATBUSH, Brooklyn (PIX11) — All day long on Wednesday, crime scene technicians kept going in and out of a third-floor apartment in a residential building in Brooklyn, carrying out brown paper evidence bags in a variety of sizes, as well as large, cardboard evidence boxes. It was the third day the evidence technicians have been on scene at a home where a dismembered body was found in a taped-up refrigerator/freezer. Now, many questions surround the woman who lives in the apartment.
The discovery was one of at least two grisly finds made at her home.
The other was the body of a dead man. That’s what police came upon when they showed up at the apartment at 2069 Nostrand Ave. at around 7:10 p.m. Monday. They’d been called to do a wellness check and entered the apartment.
There, they found the man, who police described as unresponsive and unconscious, who was pronounced dead by EMS, which was called to the scene. They also found the woman, who told officers that she felt ill. She was taken to a local hospital, where she remains now.
Neighbors of the woman, who police have not identified, said that she’s fairly well known in the six-story apartment building. Some neighbors said that they were repulsed by the situation.
“How could you be in the house like that, with something like that in your refrigerator?” asked Dorothy Williams. She’s a neighbor who knows the woman, and was among various residents of the building who’ve interacted with the woman over the six years that she’s lived in her apartment.
Kelly Monteza Carty is another neighbor, who said that she’s spoken with the woman many times, and last saw her on Monday, hours before police arrived. Monteza Carty said that she was in disbelief.
“I never experienced anything like that,” she said. “It reminded me of the freaking show ‘Jeffrey Dahmer,’ in the beginning. But I’m hoping it’s not what I think it is,” she said, referring to the 2022 television series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” The drama was based on the story of the man who was convicted of killing and dismembering 16 men in the Midwest in the 1990s and storing their body parts in his refrigerator and freezer.
In the case in Flatbush, Brooklyn, people who know the woman — who’s not been officially identified or charged at this point — said that they’re shocked over what happened. They also said something similar to what police did — that the woman has a lengthy history of criminal incidents.
“She had a lot of fights with people in the building and stuff,” said Williams, the neighbor, “and a lot of fights [in general].”
Williams said that she’s been in the woman’s apartment in the past, and that it’s full of materials nearly up to the ceiling.
While that may potentially be a sign of dysfunction, Williams said, the situation that’s unfolded is far beyond what she’d imagined, in a disturbing way.
“I couldn’t even sleep, tossing and turning all night and everything,” said Williams.
Police have not identified the man found deceased, or the woman who lives in the apartment where the man was found. Investigators have also not said if the remains found in the refrigerator/freezer belong to the deceased, or to another person.
The investigation is ongoing, NYPD officials said.