UWS Woman's Death Ruled Homicide, Elder Abuse: Police, Reports

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Police are now calling an Upper West Side death a homicide, months after they discovered an 84-year-old dead inside her West 93rd Street apartment.

Officers discovered the victim, Ana Asencio, while responding to a 911 call inside of her apartment on July 17 at about 10 p.m.

First responders declared her dead at the scene, police said.

But months later, Asencio's death has been reclassified as a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, officials said.

Police reportedly told the Daily News that Asencio was the victim of elder abuse, and that she was found with both bruising to her neck and trauma to her head.

It was not clear why it took five months to determine Asencio's death was a homicide.

One neighbor told the Daily News that Asencio was a retired public school teacher who suffered from dementia and lived in the unit near Columbus Avenue with her son.

“She didn’t deserve this,” neighbor Migdalia Rodriguez, 72, told the Daily News. “She wasn’t in her right mind but she was a lovely lady.”

The Daily News also reached out to Asencio's son, but he reportedly declined to comment as of Monday evening.