A human torso that was found inside a suitcase drifting down the East River earlier this month was identified as the remains of a 65-year-old man, Edwin Echevarria, and his roommate was charged with murder, the police said Thursday morning.
Christian Millet, 23, was charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Mr. Echevarria, who had lived with him on Columbia Street on the Lower East Side, the police said.
Mr. Millet was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said. He does not have any prior arrests in New York City, according to the police.
Mr. Millet told the police that he had knocked Mr. Echevarria to the ground, then stamped on his head, killing him, according to a law enforcement official. He then used a tool to cut Mr. Echevarria’s body into pieces and put his remains in a suitcase, the official said. It was not immediately clear what happened to the rest of Mr. Echevarria’s body.
The police did not say how they learned the identity of Mr. Echevarria or provide a motive for the killing.
A New York City ferry captain discovered the suitcase drifting in the East River on Feb. 5, according to an internal police report.
Unable to fish it out of the river, the captain called the Police Department’s Harbor Unit for help, the report said.
Officers from the unit pulled the suitcase from the water around 5:30 p.m. and, after seeing what was inside, brought it to Pier 16 on the East Side of Manhattan, about a quarter-mile south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the police said.
On Thursday, family members and neighbors of Mr. Echevarria expressed shock and horror at the news of his death and disappearance. They described him as a kind neighbor with a reputation as a “family man” who often spoke about his children.
Joi Alexander, 44, who lives on the floor below Mr. Echevarria’s apartment at the Baruch Houses complex and has known him for more than a decade, said on Thursday that he was an affable neighbor.
Mr. Echevarria retired from a job at the U.S. Postal Service last year, according to Ms. Alexander, who added that she had not been aware that he was living with anyone.
Ms. Alexander said she had learned he was missing only a day earlier, after seeing a poster hanging in the window of a deli across the street from their building.
“When I saw the ‘missing’ sign, I’m just like, How could he be missing? I just spoke to him,” she said.
Juan Roman, 63, an acquaintance of Mr. Echevarria, said he had been a warm presence in the neighborhood.
“We always said hello to each other. He was a nice, friendly guy. He never looked at anyone the wrong way,” Mr. Roman said.
Mr. Echevarria’s sister Evelyn said in a brief phone call on Thursday that she was “still coming to terms with this gruesome, horrific murder.” In a post on Facebook, she shared a photo of him, standing in the rain and smiling broadly.
“We are grieving deeply, but we find comfort in the love and memories we shared with him,” she wrote in the caption. “He will be truly missed and will forever remain in our hearts.”
The post Man Charged With Killing Roommate, Whose Torso Was Found in a Suitcase appeared first on New York Times.
