The Manhattan, New York mother whose body was found stuffed inside a storage container suffered bruises and bone fractures consistent with strangulation, according to horrific new details revealed in court on Sunday.
Cops found 35-year-old Nisaa Walcott’s body inside the clear plastic bin on a Bronx sidewalk on Friday with back bruises and a broken hyoid — indicating she had been pinned to the ground and choked, Manhattan prosecutors said.
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Her ankles had also been bound, they said.
Walcott’s cousin 21-year-old Khalid Barrow is accused of killing his cousin — then stashing her body for at least a week — before cops caught him trying to dump the bin on a sidewalk Friday.
Photos obtained show Walcott’s body folded inside the container, along with miscellaneous clothing and several pairs of flip-flops wrapped in plastic.
Barrow allegedly packed the body into the bin and lugged it onto the roof on Feb. 18 and only attempted to dispose of it after being contacted by cops on Feb. 24, according to Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Clerkin.
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Walcott had not been seen since Feb. 16, when her 14-year-old son received text messages purportedly from her saying she was leaving him in the care of Barrow, Clerkin said.
The boy returned from school that day to find his cousin cleaning the apartment, which reeked of bleach, according to Clerkin. After a week — in which Barrow used Walcott’s credit card and continued to impersonate her via text — family members realized the cousin had her phone and reported her missing, Clerkin alleged.
Barrow allegedly kept up the ruse for days, even as his relatives grew suspicious. At one point, Walcott’s son received a text purportedly from his mother instructing him not to tell an uncle what was going on, according to court filings.
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Surveillance footage from Walcott’s apartment building showed a man believed to be Barrow and an accomplice take the bin out of the building after 1 a.m. Friday and drive it to the Bronx in a Taxi and Limousine Commission-licensed SUV, prosecutors said.
“Surveillance video shows him in Ms. Walcott’s building with another person dragging a clear plastic storage bin down from the roof, in the elevator in the lobby, and out of the building,” said Clerkin. “Approximately one hour later, surveillance video in the Bronx captures the defendant taking that bin out of a car in the Bronx, where he dragged it to the sidewalk and abandoned it.”
Judge James Burke ordered Barrow held without bail Sunday following his brief arraignment, during which the suspect did not speak. He is charged with second-degree murder and three counts of concealment of a human corpse.
His next court date is March 4.
Family and friends of Walcott and Barrow — including one man who put his fingers in his ears as prosecutors described Walcott’s injuries — declined to speak outside the courtroom.
“It’s crazy,” said one man, who identified himself as a cousin.
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