Police are questioning the son of a woman whose dismembered body parts were found in separate bags on a Bronx street. Top NYPD spokesman Paul Browne tells the Times that 23-year-old Bashid McLean "made statements implicating himself in the homicide" when he reported his mother, 45-year-old Tanya Byrd, missing early Tuesday morning, after a dog walker had found human remains in duffel bags on Eagle Avenue at 158th Street. No charges have been filed. Police sources told the Post that Byrd's apartment, which she shared with her daughter and two sons, contained a handsaw, seemed to be missing a shower curtain, and "reeked of bleach."
That said, media reports vary wildly as to exactly what police found in Byrd's apartment: the Post claims it was a "handsaw," the Times reports that it was a "box for a saw," and NY1 says it was "a chainsaw."
Byrd's sister, Cassandra McLean, told the Post that she believed that Bashid was "crazy" but had nothing to do with her sister's death, and that the last time anyone saw her was when an ex-boyfriend visited the apartment on Monday. “He [the ex-boyfriend] came over yesterday and walked out with her in the morning, yesterday morning,” Cassandra McLean said. “That’s what her son told me on the phone just now.”
Byrd worked as a home-health aide, and her youngest son, a six-year-old, has Down Syndrome, leading some neighbors to believe that she never would have left him alone in the apartment willingly. "She always had a pretty smile for everybody, always helped everybody out," a friend told NY1. "It's just sad what happened to her. We're going to miss her a lot."
