Police Identify Woman Set On Fire In Harlem Building Stairwell

HARLEM, NY — Police are investigating the death of a Harlem woman, found burning in an apartment complex stairwell Tuesday morning, as a homicide, an NYPD spokesman told Patch.

Shantee Nakhid's body was found on fire around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday in the ninth floor stairwell of a building on East 105th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, police told Patch. Nakhid, 23, had been dead before her body was set ablaze, police told Patch.

A man, taken to Harlem Hospital after a botched suicide attempt, used a garbage bag to drag Nakhid's body from his own apartment building on Park Avenue between East 104th and 105th streets into the building where she was found, police said. Both buildings are part of the George Washington Carver Houses development, which is run by the New York City Housing Authority.

Nakhid lived in Harlem's Martin Luther King Houses on West 112th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, police told Patch.

After the man was seen dragging Nakhid's body, he fled to his building and holed up in his 12th floor apartment, police said. After a short standoff, the man slit his throat in an attempt to kill himself, police told Patch.

The man survived and was taken to Harlem Hospital in critical condition, police told Patch. The man has not been charged with any crimes, police said.

The Medical Examiner will investigate the woman's cause of death, police told Patch.

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