A family member of a Manhattan mother who was found murdered was arrested and charged for her death.
The New York Post reports that 21-year-old Khalid Barrow has been hit with a murder charge for killing his cousin, Nisaa Walcott from East Harlem. He’s also been charged with concealing a human corpse. The 35-year-old was found on Friday afternoon in a plastic storage container on a sidewalk in The Bronx . The woman’s family had reported her missing early in the week.
Police honed in on Barrow as a suspect after surveillance video showed the two going into her East Harlem apartment building on Friday. Barrow—who was staying with her, according to a neighbor—was the only one seen leaving the building. The footage also captured Barrow taking a plastic container from the building on Friday.
Walcott leaves behind a 14-year-old son. “They were close,” the aforementioned neighbor, Christopher Sanchez told the Post. “When it came to her son, that was her top priority. That’s a sad thing,” he said.
He continued, “How do you do that to your cousin? She gave you shelter, she gave you a place to live. She actually extended her hand and this is how you repay her?”
Authorities think that Barrow pretended to be Walcott and texted her family members from her phone. However, her family became skeptical of the messages since they didn’t line up with her previous texts, as well as her family knowing that she was going out of town for business and that Barrow was going to babysit her son. It’s unclear, at this point, how Walcott died.
