A construction job at a NYCHA housing complex last month led to the horrific discovery of the remains of a woman who had been reported missing since 2020.
According to the police report, workers were able to observe from a window the remains of Marilyn McMichael, 54, who lived in South Jamaica Houses in Queens, New York, a property managed by the Housing Authority of the City of New York (NYCHA ).
The report reveals that workers were on a scaffold making repairs when they saw McMichael’s skeleton through the open window of his bedroom on the seventh floor of the building, reported WPIX-TV.
Police entered the apartment on April 26. There they observed that the last time the page of a calendar was changed was in August 2020, which indicates that the woman’s remains lay in place for almost two years.
McMichael’s adoptive sisters, Simone Best Jones and Sharman McElrath, told the outlet that they began to worry about her in June 2020, when she called them and told them she wanted to go to the hospital. Apparently the woman was upset.
According to the statements, McElrath told his adoptive sister that the city’s hospitals were not accepting patients due to the pandemic.
The sisters went to McMichael’s apartment, but no one answered the door. However, they were not immediately concerned, as this was not unusual behavior. The woman had “emotional problems” and in the past she had refused to talk to her adoptive family, according to her sisters.
But as the months passed, Best Jones and McElrath decided to call 911 and file a missing person report in January. According to the sisters, NYCHA security personnel told them that McMichael “hadn’t paid his rent in over a year.”
Their attempt to file a police report was also met with resistance from NYCHA because they were not close relatives. An official said Best Jones’s parents were on McMichael’s emergency card. But both parents died more than 20 years ago, they testified.
The sisters eventually convinced NYCHA managers and a police officer to visit McMichael’s apartment with them, but the skeleton key failed to open the door.
According to the sisters, NYCHA made no further attempts to enter the apartment and check on the woman’s welfare.
Asked for comment, a NYCHA representative called McMichael’s death a “police matter.”
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