The two squatters wanted for killing a woman and stuffing her body in a duffel bag in the closet of the Manhattan apartment she had just started staying in have been apprehended in Pennsylvania, police sources said Friday.
The duo, a 19-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman, have been on the run since they allegedly killed Nadia Vitels inside her deceased mother’s apartment on E. 31st St. near Third Ave. in Kips Bay.
U.S. Marshals grabbed the couple in York, Penn., Friday morning, police sources with knowledge of the case said.
Police believe that the squatters were in Vitels’ mothers apartment, which had been vacant for a few months, when the 52-year-old woman showed up to prepare the apartment for a family friend on March 10.
Vitels’ son found her mother’s body, her foot sticking out of the duffel bag, as they frantically searched the apartment four days later.
After beating Vitels to death, the couple stole the woman’s Lexus and drove to Pennsylvania, where they crashed the vehicle in Lower Paxton Township, Penn., about 30 miles from where they were apprehended, police said.
They spent the next week wandering around the area, going to “multiple car dealerships trying to purchase a car for $1,000 which they [were] unable to do,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
Around the same time Vitels was killed, the couple threw her belongings down the apartment’s garbage chute, arousing the suspicion of the victim’s neighbors, cops said.
They also tossed the victim’s cellphone in the East 40s as they headed north to the George Washington Bridge, police sources believe.
The building’s super suspects the squatters planned to throw more than just her belongings down the chute.
“The duffel bag that she was in, it wasn’t so big,” the super, Jean Pompee, told the Daily News. “I’m only guessing but I think they might have thought about throwing her down the chute. The chute falls down to the basement and there’s a compactor in the basement.”
Police have begun taking steps to extradite the couple back to New York to face murder charges.
