Dumped Body Parts Lead To 2 Arrests In The Bronx

THE BRONX, NY — Two people — a parolee and one of the victim's friends — were arrested Wednesday for allegedly killing a Bronx woman and leaving parts of her body near two parks, police said.

Daquan Wheeler and Ciara Martinez, both of the Bronx, face charges including murder, manslaughter and concealment of a human corpse in the gruesome death of Lisa Marie Velasquez, the NYPD said.

Parts of Velasquez's dismembered body were found stuffed in bags on Aug. 24 and 28 near Barretto Point Park and Clinton Playground on Crotona Park South, officials said. The locations are about two and a half miles apart.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Velasquez's death a homicide and said she died by "multiple blunt impact injuries of (the) head with skull fractures."

Police believe Velasquez — a friend of Martinez's — was killed in Martinez and Wheeler's Longfellow Avenue apartment, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said Thursday.

Velasquez called 911 from the apartment on Aug. 22 to report what she called a kidnapping amid a dispute between the couple over their child, Shea said.

"The kidnapping turned out to be the father of the child" — Wheeler — "removing the child from the apartment," Shea said. "The call lasted approximately, from my recollection, about five minutes, and that was a domestic dispute that the victim of the homicide was not involved in."

Wheeler had already left the apartment when Velasquez made the call, Shea said. Police responded that day and took a report, Shea said, but he could not say whether it was from the caller or the woman who lived at the apartment.

There were at least four previous domestic incidents reported at the apartment, Shea said.

Wheeler, who is currently on parole, pleaded guilty to attempted burglary in 2015 and was convicted in a 2006 robbery case, Shea said.

Wheeler and Martinez were still awaiting arraignment as of Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the Bronx District Attorney's Office said.

(Lead image: A police sketch of Lisa Marie Velasquez. Photo from NYPD)