Cops on Saturday arrested a male cousin of the 35-year-old Manhattan mother found dead inside of a storage container in The Bronx, police and sources said.
Khalid Barrow, 21, of The Bronx, was slapped with a murder charge in the death of Nisaa Walcott, of East Harlem, after her body was found Friday afternoon in a plastic container that was left across the street from a storage unit at 950 University Ave. in the Highbridge section, sources said. The woman was reported missing earlier this week, the sources said.
Barrow is additionally charged with concealing a human corpse, cops said.
Barrow was grilled by NYPD detectives at the 23rd precinct in Harlem on Saturday after police obtained video of Walcott going into her East Harlem apartment building with Barrow on Friday — but only Barrow was seen leaving, sources said.
Sources said the video also showed the cousin at Walcott’s building, removing a plastic container early Friday.
Cops believe that Barrow texted Walcott’s concerned family members from her phone in an effort to throw them off, but the family grew increasingly suspicious as the responses were inconsistent with previous text exchanges — including a text that said she was going on a business trip and the suspect would watch her son.
Walcott’s cause of death was not immediately clear pending an autopsy from the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Christopher Sanchez, a neighbor, said Walcott was a doting mother to her 14-year-old son.
“They were close,” he said. “When it came to her son, that was her top priority. That’s a sad thing,” he said.
Another neighbor and friend called Walcott a “beautiful woman.”
“She gave a big smile to everyone. She cared for her son. She was a great woman, a hard worker. She would come from work and go home,” he said.
He said Walcott let her cousin stay with her.
“How do you do that to your cousin? She gave you shelter, she gave you a place to live. She actually extended her hand and this is how you repay her?” he said.