Woman's Dead Body Found In Charles Village Apartment; Man Found With Her Taken Into Custody

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Police make a gruesome discovery in Baltimore's Charles Village neighborhood: a badly decomposing body found inside an apartment there.

Derek Valcourt explains that's not all police found.

As if a decomposing body wasn't bad enough, police found a man living in the apartment with it.

Residents at the Wyman House apartments in Charles Village can't believe the details.

"It's very terrifying," said Lynn Godfrey.

"It's like something you would see in a horror movie, definitely not in real life," said Ethel Stevenson.

When police were called there Saturday just before 7 p.m. , they discovered the decomposing body of a woman inside an apartment on the sixth floor.

Detectives say the body appeared to have been dead for at least a week.

"Upon entering into the apartment there was an individual who was in the apartment with her.  He was taken into custody and questioned," said Det. Donny Moses, Baltimore City Police Department.

Police are waiting for autopsy results to determine if the woman was murdered and if the man whose apartment she was found in should be charged.

Neighbors say the woman lived in another apartment just down the hall from where her body was found.

Though managers at the Wyman House would not comment on the situation, residents say they had been complaining about a foul odor coming from the sixth floor for days.

"It was just a nasty, stinky odor, unbearable odor," Stevenson said.

Neighbors are in disbelief that the woman's body went undetected for so long and don't understand how anyone could live in the same apartment as a corpse.

"The girl was in his apartment obviously over a week to 10 days decomposing.  How can you live in an apartment with that smell?" said Thomas Ferguson.

"It's real scary because like I said if it could happen to one person who knows it could happen to somebody else," Godfrey said.

Police say they do know who the victim is but they are not yet ready to release her name. They will say that she is 41 years old.

The apartment building where her body was discovered is owned by the Baltimore City Housing Authority.