The rotting body of a man believed to have been dead for weeks has been found under a couch in a New York City apartment.
Police responded to a report of a foul odor at an apartment on Jamaica Avenue near 77th Street in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Queens around 1 p.m. Wednesday. A tenant made the original call to the landlord, according to 1010 WINS.
Police found the man under the couch, with scars and injuries to his back.
Emergency services were called and the man was found dead at the scene.
“The body was so broken they don’t know who it is,” a law enforcement source told the New York Post on Thursday.
Due to the degree of decomposition, the man may have been dead for a few weeks, police said.
His official cause of death is pending a city doctor’s report.
On Thursday morning, police had not released any further details about the incident and no arrests had been made.
An investigation is underway and police are reviewing surveillance footage in the area.
The discovery came more than five months after police found the body of a 36-year-old autistic woman melted into a couch, surrounded by her own feces, at her parents’ home in Slaughter, Louisiana. The victim, Lacey Fletcher, suffered from locked-in syndrome, a rare neurological condition that left her unable to move her muscles.
Authorities believe Fletcher spent 12 years on the bench. Bed sores on her body went to her bone. Her parents, Sheila and Clay, who were charged with second-degree murder, were released from prison in May after paying $300,000 in bonds each. If convicted, they risk life sentences without parole.
The Fletchers trial is expected to begin as early as October.
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