Cousin charged with murdering woman stuffed in container dumped near Bronx storage facility

A 35-year-old single mom from East Harlem whose slain body was stuffed inside a plastic container on a Bronx sidewalk was killed by her cousin, police say. 

 Nisaa Walcott, a beautician and mother to a 15-year-old boy, was discovered February 25, just blocks away from the Yankee Stadium, more than a week after she was reported missing.

Her death shattered her close-knit family, with her brother Eugene Butler saying the homicide victim ‘loved everyone unconditionally.

He told the New York Daily News: ‘Nisaa loved her family and friends and she would do anything for them.’

Police on Saturday charged her 21-year-old cousin Khalid Barrow with murder and concealing a human corpse. Walcott’s decomposing body was abandoned in a container near the Deegan Expressway in Melrose, not far from a storage facility.

Cops closed in on their chief suspect after reviewing surveillance footage of Walcott and Barrow entering her apartment together on February 16. Only he reemerged from the building, sources told the New York Post. 

Barrow was also captured on video removing a plastic container from the building, the Post reported.

Nisaa Walcott, 35, was discovered slain and stuffed inside a plastic storage container last Friday

A neighbor told the outlet that the young cousin had been living with Walcott and her son at the time of the slaying.

‘How do you do that to your cousin?’ the unidentified neighbor said. ‘She gave you shelter, she gave you a place to live. She actually extended her hand and this is how you repay her?’

The victim’s sister-in-law Anginette Buttler said Walcott’s killer was ‘cruel to put her in a container like that.’ 

She told the the Daily News: ‘Nisaa was a very kind young lady and she helped everybody, she wouldn’t hurt a soul. We don’t know what would make somebody do something so cruel. Nisaa had no enemies and she was a good person, a good giving heart.’

Walcott’s friend characterized her as a ‘beautiful person’ and a ‘single mother and entrepreneur who worked hard’

The man who discovered Walcott’s body frequents the site across from 950 University Avenue along the Deegan Expressway to find and resell items dumped there by people using the self-storage facility. 

He noticed a dresser that had been abandoned there around 11 a.m. and came back in the afternoon to retrieve it. A foul odor drew his attention and he saw a human foot jutting from a plastic container that he said hadn’t been there earlier, WABC-TV reported.

NYPD officers are pictures transporting Walcott’s corpse in a body bag at the scene

The man who discovered Walcott’s body noticed a dresser that had been abandoned there around 11 am on Friday, and came back in the afternoon to retrieve it. A foul odor drew his attention to a human foot jutting from a plastic container that he said hadn’t been there earlier

It was unclear how long her body went undetected, but police sources told NBC New York that it had begun to decompose. The bin containing Walcott’s body did not appear to be connected to the storage facility.

It is commonplace for furniture and trash to line that sidewalk, neighbors told outlets – but after Friday, they want that dumping to stop. 

Stephanie Nunez, who neighbors the Melrose site, said that her father had parked alongside the dresser moments earlier. 

‘He just got out of the car and didn’t notice anything,’ Nunez said. 

Another neighbor, who identified herself as DeeDee, told reporters that ‘this is crazy.’

‘It was a woman found, decomposed. I am a woman – a single, black woman at that, and I have children,’ she said.  

Walcott’s aunt, Bernadette Butler Colon, implored anyone with knowledge of her niece’s whereabouts to come forward in a Friday Facebook post just hours before the body was uncovered

Norma Menedez, Walcott’s friend of 15 years who employed her at the Live on Lexington barber shop, told the New York Daily News on Friday night that she ‘has no idea who would do something so cruel to her’

Norma Menedez, Walcott’s friend of 15 years who employed her at the Live on Lexington barber shop, told the New York Daily News on Friday night that ‘this is something you read about on the milk carton or watch on SVU.’

‘This is not reality. She had a family who loves her,’ she told the outlet.  

‘She was a beautiful person. She had a lot of life. She was an entrepreneur. She was a nice person. She was a great woman.’ 

Walcott’s aunt, Bernadette Butler Colon, implored anyone with knowledge of her niece’s whereabouts to come forward in a Friday Facebook post just hours before the body was uncovered. 

‘This is my niece Nisaa Walcott. She has been missing for a week now,’ Colon wrote. 

‘She has a wonderful son and a host of family and friends awaiting her safe return home. This is strange as she would never abandon her beloved son.’ 

Menedez told the Daily News that ‘everything [Walcott] did was for her son’

Menedez told the Daily News that ‘everything she did was for her son.’

‘She was a great mother. She was always there for him,’ she said. ‘We have no idea who would do something so cruel to her. ‘

Another friend, Luz Droz, told NBC New York that Walcott ‘didn’t deserve this.’

‘She was a beautiful person, hard worker, she was a single mother, she was an entrepreneur she worked hard,’ Droz said.