The case of Boitumelo "Tumi" McCallum, a 20-year-old Mills College student whose badly decomposed body was found last weekend in her mother's Washington Square Village apartment, has taken on a strange twist.
This is a sad, disturbing story family.
Police have now arrested 23-year-old Michael Cordero in connection with the death of his estranged girlfriend. On Tuesday, Cordero's family members spotted him perched on the roof of their apartment building, bleeding from his wrists.
When they tried to approach him, Cordero ran down the stairway and out the front door of the building. Witnesses called 9-1-1 after they watched Cordero — still bleeding — run down the street with his family in close pursuit.
The chase ended when Cordero ran into a supermarket. Moments later, he was taken into custody.
While in the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital, police say Cordero made statements to the effect of, "I killed my girlfriend. I couldn't take it, so I tried to kill myself."
On Sunday night a couple subletting the other bedroom of the two-bedroom apartment reported smelling a foul odor coming from Tumi's bedroom. When the building superintendent attempted to investigate the source of the odor, he found the door locked from the inside.
Suspecting foul play, he alerted the authorities. Police officers arrived at the eighth-floor apartment where tenants stated that they had not seen Tumi since Wednesday, when she threw what neighbors described as a "wild party." Entering the bedroom through an unlocked balcony window, when police officers stepped inside the room, it allegedly was littered with condom wrappers and beer bottles.
Overwhelmed by the stench of death, police indicated that the source of the odor was quickly traced to some bedding sheets in a space between the bed and the wall.
Upon closer investigation, the officers caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a body hidden within the soiled linens.
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