A New York man has been arrested for the murder of his cousin, whose body was found dumped in a plastic box along a highway in the Bronx.
Nisaa Walcott, 35, was reported missing by her brothers last Thursday after she failed to pick up their calls and sent suspicious text messages in response.
Her body was discovered inside a plastic storage container next to a roadway the following day.
Police arrested Walcott’s cousin, 21-year-old Khalid Barrow, for her murder after he was allegedly filmed carrying a plastic box out of her building.
The motive for the killing remains unclear.
Walcott’s family shared their heartbreak with CBS2 over the weekend, calling the mother of a 14-year-old boy a “beautiful person”.
“I’m feeling very numb and empty right now,” her brother Eugene Butler said.
"This is barbaric, very gutless. The person who did this had to have been a person who had no soul because all she wanted to do was help this person.”
Mr Butler said the family contacted police after they repeatedly tried to call her and she responded with strange messages.
“The language that was being used was like, wait a minute, that’s not my sister,” he said.
He said he last spoke with Walcott on 14 February, and two days later her son received an odd text from her phone.
It said that she would be going on a business trip and Mr Barrow would be in charge of the teen.
When he returned home on 16 February, the son found Mr Barrow cleaning the apartment which was thick with the smell of bleach.
One week later Mr Barrow allegedly returned to remove Walcott’s body with help from an unidentified man.
Mr Butler said the family is grateful to investigators for their swift arrest of Mr Barrow and will fight to ensure Walcott receives justice.
The community gathered for a candlelight vigil in honor of Walcott on Saturday.
“She was a good woman. She did not deserve to be discarded like trash on the street," Walcott’s friend Delia Soto said.
