The discovery of the semi-decomposed body of a woman at the end of a quiet residential block in the Wakefield section of The Bronx has alarmed local residents and launched a police inquiry.

 

An NYPD spokesperson said that on Friday, June 9, at around 12.16 p.m., police from the 47th Precinct responded to a 911 call of “an aided” [person] at the rear of 4438 Edson Avenue.

 

“Upon arrival, officers observed an unconscious and unresponsive female, semi-decomposed inside a plastic bin,” the spokesperson said. “EMS responded and pronounced the female deceased at the scene. The City’s medical examiner will determine the cause of death.”

 

An NYPD spokesperson later said the incident has not currently been classified a homicide and said the identification of the deceased is pending proper family notification. According to police sources, the woman is estimated to be in her thirties.

The area where the body was discovered is a cul-de-sac of sorts, located on the leafy end of 4438 Edson Avenue, adjacent to an overgrown pathway / track that runs from Barnes Avenue to Baychester Avenue through Bissel Gardens, a litter-ridden, wooded green area which some local residents said they walk through to get to a local store on busier Baychester Avenue. The track is bordered on one side by a high wall, on the far side of which is the MTA subway depot / yard and maintenance facility. The last stop on the 2 train is located nearby at 241st Street.

We spoke to one local male resident who was walking through the pathway from the Baychester Avenue side after the police crime scene tape had been taken down and asked him for his thoughts on the discovery of the body.

 

He said the pathway was pretty busy in the morning time. Asked if he had noticed in recent days the reportedly large bin located on the pathway in which the body had been discovered, the man said, “Not really, you know?” Asked how he felt about the discovery of the body in his local neighborhood, he said, “Trust me, it’s not good because I’m the person that’s using this track right here, you know? It’s not safe.” Asked if he felt safe in the neighborhood in general, he said, “On the block is okay but like this, this end here…sometimes, you know, it’s not good.”

We later spoke to Koya, a young female resident of Edson Avenue living close to the crime scene and who has lived in the area for about three and a half years. We asked her if could tell us what she knew of what happened. “I just heard that they found a body in the path.” Asked how she felt about it, Koya said, “I mean, I definitely live in a neighborhood I feel like… it’s unsafe. Scared, definitely; I won’t be using that path anymore.”

 

She said there had been a lot of police activity and news cameras in the area earlier on Thursday though she wasn’t home when the body was discovered. Asked if she walked the path regularly, she said, “Yeah, just walked it last night, honestly, to go to the store. I used it as a shortcut.”

Asked if it was well lit at night-time, she said, “No, dark,” indicating that she took the chance to go to the store nonetheless. Asked how long was the walk, she said, “Less than two minutes, honestly.” We asked if there were usually a lot of people on the pathway. She said, “No, not really; it’s a very secluded area. I’m not surprised that something like this happened because it’s the privacy to do so… but I didn’t expect it.”

 

We also spoke to Lisa, who lived in the same building as Koya and asked her if she tended to use the pathway. “I don’t go through the path. I try not to because [of] the bushes and it’s very dangerous and you sometimes see homeless people in there. It’s… I know things happen in there, so I don’t go through it.”

Asked what kind of things she was referring to, Lisa said, “Last year, I was walking through it and a homeless man was in the path, naked, you know? So, it’s like you never know who’s walking through it. Sometimes, I sit here and I see weird people walking through so I try to avoid it because the bushes is high, so you never know what’s going to happen.” Asked if the man was completely naked, she said, “Completely.” Asked if he had any belongings nearby, she said no and that he was just laying in the bushes.

 

Lisa continued, “So I tell my cousin, don’t make her daughter walk through it because you never know, because she has an 11-year-old you know? The kids walk through it a lot to go to the store but this is sad. Yeah, I hope they do something. I hope they come out and cut the bushes, and you know, a lot of things happen back here, and we call the cops, and nobody comes. So you know, hopefully now they’ll pay more attention to us back here.”

 

Norwood News asked the NYPD if they would like to respond to the resident’s remarks, and will update this story upon receipt of any feedback we receive.

Asked what kind of things happened, Lisa said, “It’s calm now and quiet now. We’ve been living here three years, and I’ve seen two shoot-outs on the block and the cops, just like this…..they come and we tell them, and nothing.”

 

Asked if she had seen the shoot-outs or heard them, she nodded. “So, it’s very scary back here,” Lisa said. Asked when the shoot-outs occurred, she said in June 2020. “So, from that shootout, it’s kind of been quiet, but you still see a lot of things out here, so you know it’s dangerous. You would think that it’s only the people that live by here that comes back here, but it’s not. Everybody, different types of people, people you never saw before, so it’s like really dangerous.”

Asked if she had any idea who the victim might be, Lisa shook her head. “Like, who knows?” she said. “I’m just hoping….I mean, we don’t want it to be nobody but I’m hoping it’s not a kid, you know? I mean ’cause it’s a small person [to be able to fit in a bin].”

 

We asked the NYPD if they had any record of prior shoot-outs in the vicinity of 4438 Edson Avenue and will update this story upon receipt of any feedback we receive.

We later spoke to another male and female resident of Nereid Avenue, around the corner from Edson Avenue, who both declined to give their names and asked for their reaction to the incident and whether they felt unsafe in the area. The woman said, “No, not really. I lived in a bad neighborhood. I used to live in a real bad neighborhood.”

 

The man said he couldn’t say much about the incident because he wasn’t around when the police arrived and only found out about it later. Asked if they used the track/pathway and if reports were correct that it was not very well lit at night, the man said he did because that was the way to go to the store [on Baychester Avenue].

Of the discovery of the body, the man continued, “We don’t know what happened. I don’t know where the crime was. It’s always quiet [in the area]. The people who live here are working people, retired, and then we hear something like that…it’s a surprise.”

 

We also spoke with neighbors, Eileen Parajon and Antonio Canal, who both live, in separate houses, on Edson Avenue. Canal has lived there for longer, together with his elderly father, who he indicated has been understandably upset about the incident.

We asked if they witnessed the discovery of the body. Parajon said, “No, actually, my boyfriend called me and told me there’s cops in the back and forensic analysts, and I didn’t understand what was going on until I came over here, and then I realized. I said, ‘crime scene?’ I said, ‘Oh, they must have found a body’.”

 

Asked how it made her feel, Parajon said, “I mean, this block is very quiet; nothing really happens, so for this to happen, and I’ve only been here a year and a half, it’s surprising.” Asked if she had any idea who the victim was, Parajon said, “No, I have no idea.”

 

We asked if generally she felt unsafe in the neighborhood. Parajon said, “No. I mean, obviously, everybody here probably has alarms and security, but not to the point where I feel like, ‘Oh, my God! I have to keep my windows closed, my doors locked, and all this craziness. I didn’t have to feel like that. Now, I’m questioning…” Asked if she tended to walk the pathway through Bissel Gardens, Parajon said, “No.”

 

Canal agreed, saying, “No, it’s too overgrown. It’s unkept now. Bissel Gardens was a nonprofit organization that used to keep it for years, but the guy who ran Bissel Gardens, he died. So it hasn’t been upkept for four or five years now, so ever since that, now anybody could go up there and do whatever they want and nobody sees anything, because MTA has nothing to do with it anymore. They rented out or leased out that to Bissel Gardens.”

Asked if he used the pathway, Canal said he did not. “We all drive,” he said. “The majority of us all drive.” We mentioned that we heard it wasn’t very well lit. “There’s no light at all,” Canal said. “Not lit, overgrown, not kept, you know? Anybody can hide in the bushes and stuff happens. I haven’t seen stuff like this since the ’80s, because it’s not the first time a body’s been here.’

 

He added, “They’ve dumped bodies up on Grace [Avenue], up in this path here in the ’90s. This is the first time in the last 20 years I’ve heard anything dealing with any kind of killing and dumping a body in there, so I’m pretty surprised. I thought we were kind of over that generation. Canal said now the area is generally very quiet. “All working class people, nothing, nothing like that. Nothing, nothing at all, I’m very surprised.”

We mentioned that a neighbor mentioned a shoot-out in June 2020. “Yes, there was. I wasn’t even… I was inside the house. I heard about that. There were some kids that were hanging out up there, and I guess an argument broke out and there was a shooting, and they shot out a couple of car glasses, but those kids have been ran out of the area, because you know, a couple guys in the area, we wouldn’t stand for it and you got those guys, once that shooting happened, they had to go. There was no more hanging out again.

 

Asked if the kids in question had lived in the area or were just hanging out in it, he said, “They were just hanging out. That was like before the pandemic or a little bit in the pandemic..at the beginning.”

Canal continued, “Oh, it’s just surprising, you know? Seeing this kind of stuff still goes on. Now that this kind of activity is happening, it could happen again so you know, you guys got to keep an eye out on what’s going on in this neighborhood. Not everything is as it seems. Not everybody who hangs out here is doing what you think they might be doing, so you have to just keep an eye out because this is crazy.”

 

The remains of a mural painted on a wall dividing Bissel Gardens from the MTA’s subway depot/yard and maintenance facility, was seen close to the crime scene.

 

Parajon concluded, “This block is a very good block. It’s the first time since I’ve been here, and it’s been almost two years, that I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/ or on Twitter @NYPDTips.

 

All calls are strictly confidential.