Bloody Ax recovered at homicide scene in Brooklyn, police say

Ali Winston

April 20, 2019 9:53 PM

NEW YORK — The police on Saturday were investigating the gruesome killing of a woman in a Brooklyn public housing development that also left a second woman seriously injured.

Bloody Ax Recovered at Homicide Scene in Brooklyn, Police Say

An ax covered in blood was recovered from a trash compactor in the housing development, the New York Police Department said, though it was not immediately clear if it was used in the attacks.

A 21-year-old woman called for an Uber outside the housing complex, the Bushwick Houses on Flushing Avenue, at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, police said. The driver saw that she was bleeding heavily from cuts to her head and stomach and called 911.

While she was being taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, the woman told emergency medical services personnel that she had been attacked by her former boyfriend and that her daughter and a female friend were still in her eighth-floor apartment, police said.

Police officers arriving at the apartment discovered a partially decapitated woman in her 20s on the floor, with some of her fingers severed and multiple stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 4-year-old girl was found unharmed in a rear bedroom, police said. The child was taken to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center for evaluation. No arrests had been made as of Saturday afternoon.

Outside the red brick building where the attack took place, residents reacted with a mix of shock and resignation.

Rochelle McGee, a resident of another building in the Bushwick Houses who works with a local anti-violence intervention group, said she learned of the killing on Facebook.

Neighbors identified the dead woman as a friend of the wounded woman.

Renee Hamilton, who lives on the 16th floor of the building where the attack took place, recognized the wounded woman in a photograph.

“I ride the elevator with her in the morning when she takes her little daughter to school,” Hamilton said. “I’m going to pray for her.”

Ali Winston