Badly Decomposed Body of Domestic Abuse Survivor Found in Apparent Murder-Suicide in the Bronx, Police Say

The badly decomposing bodies of a man and a woman where found in a New York City apartment after a downstairs neighbor complained maggots were falling from the ceiling, authorities said.

The woman, later identified as Ashley Ducille, 29, was a domestic abuse survivor who frequently changed her locks to keep out an abusive former boyfriend, the Bronx building's superintendent, Ernesto Garcia, told the New York Daily News.

Garcia called 911 Saturday night to request a welfare check after Ducille's neighbor complained about the maggots, the paper reported.

Authorities said the deaths appeared to be a murder-suicide, and that the remains may have been there for two weeks. 

Garcia said Ducille lived in fear and had asked him to check on her.

He said the last time he saw Ducille, she had bruises and said her ex-boyfriend had broken a bone in her back.

She frequently asked for her apartment door locks to be changed, but the man would climb the fire escape to her unit, or wait outside until she exited the building, Garcia said.

"That guy, he would not move from there until she opened the door," Garcia said, the paper reported. Police were frequently called to take domestic violence complaints from the woman, he said. 

Autopsies will be conducted to determine the causes of death, authorities said. Ducille was the mother of four children, who had been removed from her care by children's services staff because of squalid living conditions, the paper reported.

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