NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — Police are on the hunt for two squatters who are wanted in connection to the murder of a woman in her Kips Bay apartment whose body was found shoved into a duffle bag, officials said.
The body of Nadia Vitel, 52, was discovered last week by her children, who were concerned when they didn’t hear from her after she went to prepare her apartment for a family friend who was moving in.
“As they’re getting ready to leave, the son opens up the closet door, near the front door, and discovers the duffle bag with a foot sticking out,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said on Thursday.
Vitel arrived in the U.S. to help with the apartment, located at 206 East 31st St., near Third Avenue, which was supposedly empty for three to four months following the death of her mother.
Police believe that there were two squatters living in the apartment who committed the murder. Authorities have surveillance video showing Vitel arriving at the apartment on the day of the murder, and a male and female suspect leaving.
“We believe that some squatters took the apartment over, and this woman came home to get this apartment set up, and walked in on the squatters that were there,” Kenny said.
Investigators believe that the squatters has been in the apartment for at least two days, but it is still unclear how they gained access to the 19th-floor luxury apartment that has direct elevator entry.
The suspects are accused of brutally beating Vitel to death when she arrived at the apartment and found them.
The medical examiner determined that a blow to the head was Vitel’s cause of death, and her body was found with blunt force trauma to the head, multiple facial fractures, a brain bleed and two broken ribs.
Following the alleged murder, the man and woman fled in Vitel’s Lexus across the George Washington Bridge, through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, where they crashed and abandoned the luxury car.
Kenny said that the suspects have been identified, and the Regional Fugitive Task Force is searching for the alleged murderers.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.