Charges against a woman who allegedly dumped human body parts in Brooklyn have been upgraded to murder, police announced on Friday.
In a briefing to the public on March 11, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Chief of Detectives James Essig announced updated charges against 83-year-old Harvey Marcelin, who was arrested on March 10 and charged with concealment of a human corpse.
“The subject had been charged with the unlawful disposal of a body. Those charges were upgraded late yesterday, pursuant to a grand jury indictment, against the suspect for murder,” said Commissioner Sewell. “This investigation was challenging, and I want to thank Chief Essig and detectives of the 75 squad and Brooklyn North homicide. I also want to thank the Brooklyn district attorney Eric Gonzalez and his team for the critical role they played in developing this case in the grand jury, which led to the indictment.”
On March 3, police responded to a call regarding a suspicious DOA at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. A man found a shopping cart at the location and inside was the torso of an adult woman. On March 7, a human leg was found in a trash bag on a street in East New York near the corner of Jamaica Avenue and Wyona Street.
Marcelin, who identifies as a transgender woman, was allegedly caught dumping human remains near her apartment, located at 50 Pennsylvania Avenue, on surveillance footage. It was reported by the New York Post that a search warrant of Marcelin’s home allegedly uncovered a human head of Susan Layden, 68.
Marcelin had previously been convicted of murder in 1963 for shooting her then-girlfriend, Jacqueline Bonds, in her apartment. She had also previously been convicted of homicide and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, and was released in 1984 on lifetime parole.
In November 1985, Marcelin stabbed another woman to death and dumped her body in Central Park. Marcelin pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in 1986 and was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison. She was released on parole in 2019.
‘This is a gruesome and barbaric homicide which resulted in a headless torso being disposed of on a New York City corner, and it takes a serial killer off our street,” said Chief Essig. “This is just the latest of a list of heinous offenses conducted over a period of a lifetime by Miss Harvey and we can only hope that she can do no more.”
