A woman whose remains were found in a trash compactor in the basement of a public housing building in Brooklyn this month most likely died after slipping down a garbage chute and into the compactor, police officials said on Friday.
The body of the woman, identified as Michelle Montgomery, 39, was discovered on Feb. 1 by workers at the Borinquen Plaza complex in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Her remains were found covered in wounds and slashes inside a black garbage bag that had been processed through the compactor, officials said.
The police had been investigating Ms. Montgomery’s death as possible foul play, but on Friday, Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, said that investigators now believed her death was most likely an accident.
“Our theory right now is that she may have dropped an item in the chute, went to retrieve it and fell head first,” Chief Kenny said during a news conference at Police Headquarters in downtown Manhattan.
Investigators believe Ms. Montgomery had been trying to fish her purse from the chute, the chief said. After falling down into the basement, he said, Ms. Montgomery was processed by the compactor, which probably crushed her.
The New York City medical examiner’s office is investigating Ms. Montgomery’s cause of death.
But Chief Kenny said on Friday that the preliminary results of her autopsy and the police’s investigation suggested that her injuries had come from the compactor. Her body showed no indication of struggle, he said, and the medical examiner found that Ms. Montgomery had still been alive when she was inside the machine.
Ms. Montgomery, who lived in the Gowanus Houses, a different public housing development about four miles from Borinquen Plaza, did not appear to have a connection to the building where she died, the police said. It was not immediately clear why she had gone there on Jan. 31, the night of her death.
That evening, Ms. Montgomery had been out with her cousin and three friends at MamaTaco, a Mexican restaurant in the area, according to the police. She had left her apartment and arrived at the restaurant at around 9:30 p.m., emerging from the establishment with her cousin hours later at 1:20 a.m., Chief Kenny said.
At some point after leaving, however, Ms. Montgomery was separated from her cousin. Video footage reviewed by the police shows her entering the Borinquen Plaza building on Bushwick Avenue by herself at around 1:39 a.m., the chief said.
In the moments that followed, witnesses described hearing screaming from inside the building’s garbage chute on the second floor and from inside the compactor, the police said.
The next morning, workers who were cleaning the compactor room at the housing complex found Ms. Montgomery’s remains in a plastic bag. Her body was maimed: She had a broken rib cage, deep slashes on her torso and head, and puncture wounds on her pelvis and thigh, the police said.
Officers responding to a 911 call from the workers that morning also found a purse containing two forms of identification for Ms. Montgomery.
Since the discovery of her body two weeks ago, family and friends have said they were devastated by her death and the gruesome circumstances surrounding it.
Anthony Echevarria, Ms. Montgomery’s husband, described his wife as a loving companion and mother to their four children, ages 10 months, 11, 12 and 19.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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