NYC person of interest charged in killing of woman found in sleeping bag
NEW YORK CITY - Chad Irish, the person of interest taken into custody in NYC after the body of Yazmeen Williams was found last week inside a Kips Bay sleeping bag, has been charged in connection to the killing, the NYPD said.
According to police, Irish, 55, of Manhattan, is charged with concealment of a human corpse.
Irish was also charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of menacing, but police say those charges are not related to the homicide investigation. Irish was taken into custody on Monday due to a dispute with someone unrelated to the murder. Officers questioned the suspect about the murder, and he was then charged with concealment.
Kips Bay murder: Who was Yazmeen Williams?
The body of Yazmeen, 31, was found stuffed into a sleeping bag last Friday in front of a building on East 27th Street. The medical examiner's office determined her cause of death was a gunshot wound to her head.
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Yazmeen Williams found dead inside bag in Kips Bay: Did she know her killer?
Investigators are looking into whether Yazmeen had any connection to the man taken into custody.
FOX 5 NY's Arthur Chi'en reports her family is convinced Yazmeen knew her killer. Her mother, Nicole Williams, described her as an angel and said that she meant everything to her.
Yazmeen studied criminal justice at Buffalo State University. She has a twin brother, and her father was supposed to be flying in to see her Monday, her mother told The New York Post.
"She meant everything to me. That was my baby," her mother said.
Investigators are looking into whether Yazmeen had any connection to the man taken into custody. The Post reports Nicole said the man in the wheelchair knew her daughter, but that remains unclear.
A small memorial was arranged for Yazmeen on the sidewalk where her body was found.
Angry mob attacks person of interest
Anger over the killing boiled over in Kips Bay on Monday, when the NYPD took the person of interest into custody just around the corner from where Yazmeen's body was found.
The man, who uses a wheelchair, was being transferred to a gurney when a crowd of angry community members gathered, screaming and trying to attack him.
Video shows family and friends of Yazmeen unleashing their fury as police and EMTs desperately try to fend them off. Several people punched him, while others could be heard begging the crowd to kill him and trying to tear his shirt from his body.
The man pled his innocence with the angry crowd, before being loaded into the ambulance, which drove away from the scene.
Sources tell FOX 5 NY that police have a surveillance video that shows a man in an electric wheelchair dragging the bags to the location. A motive for the killing remains unknown.