A New York City man has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder after police say they found his girlfriend dead with a slit throat early Saturday morning.
Nashan Walsh, 35, is accused of murdering 37-year-old Bjana James, who police say was his girlfriend, WNBC reported. He is also charged with manslaughter and criminal possession of a firearm in the fourth degree, online court records show.
At around 2:45 a.m. Saturday, New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers discovered James “unconscious and unresponsive inside an apartment at NYCHA’s [New York City Housing Authority] Betances Houses on East 147th Street” in the Bronx, WABC reported.
“Police said she was found on a sofa with her throat slashed and a knife in her chest,” according to the outlet. EMS pronounced her dead after arriving at the scene, police noted.
“According to sources familiar with the investigation, the victim’s brother first came upon the gruesome scene while conducting a wellness check that morning after not hearing from her in several days,” AMNY reported.
The victim’s relatives held a vigil outside of her apartment on Saturday, where they told the New York Post that earlier in the week, James informed a family member she was concerned about Walsh’s behavior. They also said that their texts to James went unanswered beginning Wednesday night.
“She basically was texting her [relative] the day it happened like, ‘I’m scared. He’s gonna kill me. I’m scared for my life. He is bugging out,'” James’s cousin, who identified herself as “Shelly,” told the Post.
“He left the house. She wrote back… ‘He’s here, he’s back,’ and ever since she wrote that we didn’t hear from her again,” Shelly added.
Sources familiar with the case told AMNY that authorities nabbed Walsh at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx on Saturday, hours after James’s body was discovered. He was reportedly being “treated for drug use after allegedly assaulting EMS workers,” according to AMNY.
Police told the Post that Walsh has 11 prior arrests that were unsealed, which were primarily for robbery and assault.
They also noted Walsh has previously been both a culprit and victim of domestic violence.
James’s mother, Stacy James, spoke to WNBC about her daughter’s killing.
“She’s a wonderful person, very gifted. Many people loved her,” Stacy said. “But her power was taken by a monster that just took her life senselessly.”
She encouraged victims of domestic violence to “let someone know.”
“I feel like if anyone knows about anybody that’s having a violence problem, don’t hide from it… let someone know,” she told WNBC. “Because all of this could have been avoided.”
James’s family told WABC she was a mother to a twelve-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. It was not clear if they were present at the time of the stabbing.
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