A 24-year-old man is suspected of stabbing his girlfriend to death and leaving her body in a 55-gallon barrel inside his Harlem apartment for several days, the medical examiner said.
Police responded to a call about a foul smell coming from the apartment on 140th Street and Seventh Avenue and discovered the woman's body inside the container.
The woman had been stabbed multiple times in the torso, the medical examiner said. Her identity has yet to be released.
According to the law enforcement source, the woman was planning on leaving her boyfriend to move to the Dominican Republic.
Her boyfriend is in custody at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital under psychiatric care. Police believe the woman may have been dead since Wednesday.
