New York

Cops Investigating Woman's Body Parts in NYC Trash Arrest Bronx Man, Find Head, Hands, Feet in His Freezer: Sources

Police found the woman's leg, arms, and torso at a trash transfer station in the Bronx

What to Know

  • A worker was about to drop off a load of trash when he saw the remains at a garbage transfer station, police said.
  • Investigators looked at surveillance footage of at the transfer station, followed the route of the truck, then checked cellphone records.
  • The victim hasn't been identified.

A woman's body parts, including her torso, leg and arms, were discovered in a trash transfer station and investigators followed the evidence back to a Brooklyn man who was arrested Sunday, police said. 

Somorie Moses, 40, was charged with concealment of a human corpse and tampering of evidence, police said. Authorities say charges could be upgraded pending autopsy results.

Investigators looked at surveillance footage of at the transfer station, followed the route of the truck, then checked cellphone records before nabbing Moses, NYPD spokesman Lt. Thomas Antonetti said. He added that during a search warrant, investigators found multiple pieces of corroborating evidence at Moses' home, including forensic evidence.

Law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 they found a head, hands and feet in Moses' freezer. 

Moses has been arrested eight times in the past, and was previously convicted of attempting to promote prostitution in the second degree and profit from prostitution of a child in a 2006 arrest in New York City, according to state records. He was sentenced to six months in a local jail and five years of probation in the case, and was on the state's sex offender registry. 

Neighbors of Moses were stunned to hear of his arrest in the disturbing case.

"I felt sick to my stomach, scared," said Marva Adams, recalling how the man who lives on the second floor would open the door for her and offer to help when she was juggling groceries. "Last night I didn't sleep at all, I was so nervous." 

"He don't come out unless he goes out, and he goes out to the garbage to throw garbage in the bin," said Tony Clousen, the building's janitor. 

"He don't smile. He don't smile, he just serious," he said. 

"He stayed to himself, he was real quiet, but you know how you get a feeling about somebody," said neighbor Veronica Carr. "He didn't set off too good with me, so I stayed away but the whole to find out somebody like that lived in this building -- my grandkids play in this hallways and that upsets me." 

Clousen, who has been inside Moses' apartment several times, said Moses lived there with a woman.

Law enforcement sources have not identified the dismembered woman or how she died. 

Workers first found the torso and leg of the woman in the trash at the Metropolitan Transfer Station on Halleck Street in Hunts Point shortly before 5 a.m. Tuesday.

A worker at the Metropolitan Transfer Station said he was about to drop off a load of trash when he saw the remains.

"I only went in as far as where the pit is," Elias Rodriguez said. "I didn't want to disturb what is now a crime scene. And I saw the body, the body parts laying there. A torso and a leg without a foot." 

Rodriguez said he spent three years working as a paramedic and has seen gruesome sights before, but his co-workers are traumatized by what they witnessed.

Garbage had been dropped off at the facility around midnight and then separated into five separate containers that police secured: three in the Bronx and two in Kearny, New Jersey, according to the NYPD.

Officials searched through the containers to try finding the woman's other body parts. By evening, they found a right arm and a left arm, both without hands, according to police sources. 

K9s helped sift for additional remains at first, and then 30 private carting trucks helped tip out loads of trash for sifting. That's how the arms were found, sources said. 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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