A Brooklyn woman has been arrested after a severed head and multiple body parts were found in her freezer.
Heather Stines, 45, was arrested Monday evening after police received a tip about the gruesome discovery, sources told DailyMail.com.
Stines has not been charged. It is unclear who the body parts belong to and DNA testing is currently underway. It is clear that the body parts have been removed from the apartment.
NYPD confirmed they were called to the apartment on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn at 7:10 p.m. Once there, officers observed “an unconscious and unresponsive, unidentified male inside the apartment.”
“EMS responded and stated the assisted decedent was on scene,” NYPD said in a statement.
The medical examiner will determine the cause of death and the investigation is ongoing.
It is unclear how long Stines lived in the apartment, but neighbors told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Stines’ home had been burglarized at least twice.
Heather Stines, 45, (pictured) was arrested on Monday evening after police received a tip about the gruesome discovery, sources told DailyMail.com
NYPD confirmed they were called to the Nostrand Avenue apartment in Brooklyn (pictured) on Monday at 7:10 p.m.
An officer stands guard in the apartment building on Tuesday
Stines’ elderly aunt, Amy Stines, expressed her shock and horror at the news when reached by DailyMail.com on Tuesday.
“Oh God, I just can’t fathom this,” said the 79-year-old from Kentucky.
She said her niece has had drug problems for years and moved from Kentucky several years ago in hopes of escaping her problems.
According to the aunt, Heather lived with her husband in an apartment in Brooklyn and earned some money cleaning apartments.
She said she contacted her niece on Sunday to see how she was doing and to catch up, but received no response.
Heather’s husband, Nicholas McGee, has been in a jail in Chesapeake, Virginia, since September after being accused of cashing a fraudulent check at a bank, a relative of his told DailyMail.com.
McGee was due in court Tuesday morning, his sister-in-law Catherine McGee, 55, said.
She told DailyMail.com that the couple are both drug abusers, have used heroin and crack and have been arrested several times. She said Heather relapsed a “year or two” ago after learning one of her daughters had died of a drug overdose.
The sister-in-law said she had spoken to Nicholas about the police investigation.
“He’s going to be devastated because he’s getting out of jail and she’s potentially going to jail for a possible murder,” she said.
Darrell, who lives across the street from Stines on the Brooklyn block and sometimes lent her money, said he knew she was a drug addict and that people tried to break into her apartment at least twice looking for money she owed for drugs.
He said he last saw Mcgee, who was “a cool guy,” in the last week of August.
“They got into a fight one night and I haven’t seen him since,” he said.
“A few days later she said, ‘My husband is incarcerated, I don’t have my food stamp card, do you have $10?’ I said sure.
“A few days ago she said detectives were here looking for my husband and I told them he was in jail.
‘She’s really cool. I never expected her to have a head in the freezer, no.’
Body parts were found in a freezer in Apartment 4C at 2069 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn
Heather Stines, 45, was arrested Monday night after police received a tip about a severed head and body parts in the freezer of her Brooklyn home
Another couple living in the building said Stines was so addicted to crack and heroin that she had sold “everything of value” in her apartment, even her TV.
“She’s what we call a dumpster addict, she does all the drugs,” they said.
“Heather is one of the people who demolished this building. No one would be sad if she went to jail.”
The couple said Stines recently started hanging out with a short black man with dreadlocks, with whom she was often seen – as recently as the weekend.
Stines’ aunt Amy said her niece had several children from previous relationships who were taken from her.
As far as she knew, Child Protective Services took the children away after determining she was negligent.
“The worst thing I know is that she lost her children because someone reported that they were sleeping on the floor because she had no beds,” the aunt said.
“She said she threw out the beds because of bed bugs. They slept on pallets.’
The old building with “Flatbush Court” engraved above the always-open door was poorly maintained with graffiti on the walls and bits all over the plaster of the lobby. Most of the shops in the area are boarded up and there are piles of rubbish bags on either side of the door
“My husband said let’s go buy them some beds, and before we knew it she didn’t have any more children,” she added.
‘She went to live with her cousin and then stole her computer. She also stole some money from me and my husband. She would just run away. You couldn’t do anything with her.’
“Even though she was bad, she was sweet,” the aunt said. “She was as nice as can be.”
A few years ago, the aunt recalled, “Heather said she had to get out of here. And I said you like New York better than here? I told her there are more drugs in New York.
“She said she would come back to Kentucky at some point, and I would let her stay with me,” she continued.
‘But she never came back. She sometimes texted me for money over the years. I always asked if she was in trouble and she would say, no, it’s almost over.’
The old building with “Flatbush Court” engraved above the always-open door was poorly maintained with graffiti on the walls and bits all over the plaster of the lobby.
Most of the shops in the area are boarded up and there are piles of rubbish bags on either side of the door.