A severed human hand was found stuffed into a pot of bleach inside a Bronx apartment on Monday, and sources say the victim is likely the same person whose body was found stuffed into a shopping cart and burned in Yonkers.
Police said detectives made the horrifying discovery while executing a search warrant inside an apartment on Rogers Place near East 163rd Street in Longwood around 11:30 p.m.
Investigators found a crockpot filled with bleach on the kitchen floor with two hands sticking out of it, officials said.
Sources said a black bag found in the freezer may contain more remains, including at least one leg, but investigators have not yet opened the bag.
Police said they also found a gun and drug paraphernalia in the bedroom.
Investigators believe two men loaded the body parts into a shopping cart early Monday, pushed it onto a Metro-North Railroad train and drove it to the intersection of Sherwood Avenue and Bronx River Parkway in Yonkers, where they set the body on fire, officials said.
Yonkers police said emergency crews were called to the scene around 2 a.m. Monday in response to the fire.
After the fire was extinguished, fire and police personnel found a body lying on the sidewalk, authorities said.
Police said the body was burned in Yonkers, but that the investigation determined that the Westchester County location was merely a “garbage dump,” and the investigation has been turned over to the New York Police Department and the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.
A 65-year-old manager at the Bronx building, who declined to give his name, told The Washington Post that the resident of the fourth-floor apartment where the body was found lived in one of the two-bedroom units.
He acknowledged the resident was a “drug addict” and that he had received previous complaints, but declined to give further details.
The man said he saw officers carry a body bag outside and also saw video footage of a man and woman entering and leaving the room around noon on Monday.
“All I know is I heard from the police that someone was killed there. I don’t know who,” the caretaker said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he added. “This is the first time I’ve heard of this happening here.”
The city coroner’s office is expected to officially determine the cause of death, and no arrests have been made.
