Police say the wheelchair bound man charged with dumping a woman’s body in the trash in Kips Bay one day after he was pummeled by fuming locals dragged the corpse in plain sight of neighbors.
Photo by Dean Moses
Police say the wheelchair bound man charged with dumping a woman’s body in the trash in Kips Bay one day after he was pummeled by fuming locals dragged the corpse in plain sight of neighbors.
According to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, residents were none the wiser when 55-year-old Chad Irish allegedly dragged the corpse of 31-year-old Yazmeen Williams out of the NYCHA Strauss Houses located at 224-226 East 28th St. on July 5; in fact they even held the door open for the alleged killer.
“Chad Irish is removing that package, a sleeping bag, from the location in his wheelchair, quite a few residents were more than happy to hold the door open for him as he wheeled the body down the street,” Chief Kenny said.
The surveillance video appeared to show Irish dragging the remains wrapped in a blue sleeping bag out of the building in front of several people behind his motorized wheelchair before hauling it along the sidewalk and leaving it in the trash outside of 207 East 27th Street.
Late Friday evening the body was discovered after 911 callers reported a rancid odor.
“I walked by and turned around, there were flies swarming all over it. And I saw what that looked like a ribcage,” Rian Robbins, a resident, said. “They were cleaning out the building, so I was like maybe it’s some old thing they threw out.”
Three days after the grisly discovery, the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Williams was murdered with a gunshot to the head.
“The autopsy in this case reveals when they take her body out of the sleeping bag, a bullet falls out of the back of her head,” Chief Kenny said.
Police sources say Williams had been staying with Irish in a relationship they described was built around the use of drugs. The motive for the slaying remains unclear. Williams was set to start a new job at NYCHA on Monday, just days after she was murdered, cops said.
On July 8 Chief Kenny said that cops from the 13th Precinct responded to the Strauss Houses after locals recognized Irish for the crime and attempted to have their way with him, causing him to allegedly flash a handgun.
“There was a menacing call where several people from the neighborhood were quite angry with Mr. Irish over this incident, and they surrounded him and he produced a pistol and menaced them. He then fled the location back to his apartment,” Chief Kenny said.
Officers apprehended the suspect on the 9th floor and brought him down in the elevator where EMS transferred him onto a stretcher as Williams’ family members and locals pounded their fists on the window.
Once outside enraged locals pounded Irish, laying punch after punch and tearing at him as cops desperately struggled to push the mass of humanity away while EMS tried to shield him.
“You killed my daughter,” Nicole Williams hollered in pain. “Please kill him!”
In the end, both the cops and the paramedics were able to shove the suspected killer into the back of the ambulance, but not before he was struck several more times. The group then banged their closed fists on the vehicle before it sped away.
“She was an angel. She was alive. And she’s gonna always shine,” mother Nicole Williams told amNewYork Metro. “She’s gonna live with me forever.”
So far Irish has been charged with the concealment of human corpse; however, additional charges are pending as police work to conduct a search of his home.
Additionally police sources and locals report that while Irish utilizes a wheelchair he is still able to walk.
