http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/nyregion/brooklyn-neighbors-shocked-at-discovery-of-a-skeleton-on-the-block.html?_r=0
The stone-face house at No. 745 had become somewhat of a mystery to the residents of Barbey Street in East New York, Brooklyn. For decades, a woman named Gloria Knight had lived there with her husband.
But over the last few years, the building sat untended on its lot strewed with garbage. Plywood covered the windows. Now and then, neighbors said, people came and left the property, but nobody they recognized.
It came as a surprise, they said, when a truck from RM Trucking pulled up on Saturday, and three workers armed with cleaning supplies fanned out in the yard. An hour later, they piled broken televisions, rusted metal and bags of assorted detritus into the truck and left, said Rafeek Mohamed, the trucking company’s owner. The door was ajar, but they had been hired only to clear the outside, he said.
Just before 1 p.m. on Monday, the police reported a 911 call. New owners who recently bought the house at auction had made a gruesome discovery in a second-floor bedroom: the skeletal remains of a human body, clothed in gray sweatpants and a red sweatshirt, lying across the floor. Its sex could not immediately be determined, the police said.
Finding a body so badly decomposed and yet intact is unusual, according to the medical examiner’s office, which had yet to determine a cause of death.
“Someone must have had no place to sleep,” said Michael Cardella, 48, who moved from the area to the Bronx, and was visiting relatives. “I guess they just wandered inside and never came out.”
Angela Moses, who lives in a house across the street with her daughter and grandchildren, said she never smelled any rancid odor and was stunned that a body could have been decaying there for so long that it rotted down to its bones. “Sometimes you don’t know who you’re living next door to — or what,” she said.
Mr. Mohamed said he smelled nothing foul on Saturday. “It’s sad to think that a person could rot there for that long without being found,” he said. “He must have really had nobody.”
The house stands out on a block of primarily well-kept single-family homes.
A day after the skeleton’s discovery, ceilings on both levels bore gaping holes, with plaster scattered across moldering carpets. Still, several mementos remained in place: a doormat bearing the words “Friends Forever” and an image of two children in a heart; a heart-shape box with a bow and a poster of a beach vista.
Though filthy, the bathroom was stocked with toiletries — toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner — and murky water filled the tub. In the grime-encrusted kitchen, a glass light fixture dangled precariously.
Up the rickety stairs, the rooms were all squalid, though one had some semblance of a residence. Sheets and blankets were folded into a bedroll. A half-filled backpack gaped with personal belongings. Discarded milk cartons, with expiration dates from 2013, littered the floor.
The simple house, on a 20-by-100-foot lot, was built in 1925, according to city records. Ms. Knight acquired it in 1977 for a dollar, through a program run by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Predatory lenders persuaded her to place her house as collateral for a high-interest loan even though she had no source of income. A 1999 article in The New York Times highlighted her case and described how
a judge found Ms. Knight mentally incompetent. City documents show that a social service agency was assigned to monitor her finances.
Neighbors recalled that Ms. Knight moved away several years ago. In late 2012, someone complained to the New York City Buildings Department that the house seemed abandoned and unsafe. But documents show that investigators found it properly secured and boarded up.
An obituary in The Sun Journal, a North Carolina newspaper, announced the death in 2013 of Ms. Knight, who had been living in New Bern, N.C., according to official records. The notice said she was 73 and retired from the New York City school system.
Last December, the city offered the semidetached house at auction. The neighborhood is no stranger to homelessness, with more families entering shelters than in any other district in the city, according to a 2014 study. But the uncertainty of who lived and died at 745 Barbey Street had neighbors both curious and anxious.
“I just hope they take this investigation as seriously as they should,” Ms. Moses said. “This is not just a neighborhood for crime. This is a place where people live.”
No mention of her husband.
Gloria Edwina Knight
Obituary
NEW BERN - Gloria Edwina Knight, 70, 3108 Kensington Drive, died Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, at CarolinaEast Medical Center.
She was a graduate of Newbold High School and New York University. She retired from the New York City School System and was a member of Good News Outreach Pentecostal Ministry.
Her funeral will be 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013, at Good News Outreach Pentecostal Ministry, 3208 Oaks Road, New Bern, with the Rev. David Harris officiating. Burial will follow in the Knight Family Cemetery, Ernul.
She is survived by one son, Gabriel K. Torres of Raleigh; four brothers, Venice Knight Jr. of New Bern, Ronald Knight of Ernul, Terone Knight of Laurel, Md., and Lee Arch Knight of Bowie, Md.; two sisters, Myrtle Cassandra Baker of Upper Marlboro, Md., and Martha Lois Knight of Mitcheville, Md.
The family will receive friends at the residence of Tracy Gooding, 101 North Cherie Court, New Bern. Viewing hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, at Oscar's Mortuary.
Online condolences are accepted at oscarsmortuary.com.
- See more at:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ne...ina-knight&pid=162902716#sthash.bVPvY3MS.dpuf
I don't see anyone else's name (spouse) on the deed or mortgages. Maybe it was a common law type thing.
I don't know how accurate this website is, but, there are a couple names on there that are not in her obit.
http://www.spokeo.com/NY/Brooklyn/745-Barbey-St
A bedroll is rather unusual, no?. I'm thinking the Army Strong dog tag may have reflected his service.
