Dasia Johnson, 22, of Brooklyn, was found cut up in suitcases in her Cypress Hills apartment in Brooklyn after security guards reportedly let her on-and-off-again abusive boyfriend inside.
The aspiring teacher’s body was found on Wednesday after her aunt called security for a wellness check because she hadn’t heard from her since Sunday. Building residents had also started complaining about the smell.
When guards arrived to the unit, the boyfriend – who has not been identified and reportedly lived in the unit at times – and another man refused to let them in.
When the guards left to call 911, the two men left the building. They have yet to be found and the boyfriend is currently listed as a suspect.
‘The next thing I hear, a detective calls me and tells me it’s a crime scene now,’ her aunt, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Dasia Johnson, 22, was found cut up in suitcases in her Cypress Hills apartment in Brooklyn after security guards reportedly let her on-and-off-again abusive boyfriend inside
The aspiring teacher’s body was found on Wednesday after her aunt called security for a wellness check because she hadn’t heard for her since Sunday. Building residents had also started complaining about a smell (pictured: police carry evidence bags)
When guards arrived to the unit, the boyfriend – who has not been identified and reportedly lived in the unit at times – and another man refused to let them in. When the guards left to call 911, the two men left the building. They have yet to be found and the boyfriend is currently listed as a suspect
On Thursday, when resident Stephanie Harris went over to the apartment to ask the detective ‘what was going on,’ she was horrified to find ‘blood everywhere.’
‘It was nasty. You can imagine what happened to her, you know she fought for her life. There was blood splattered,’ Harris told the New York Post.
‘He opened the door and it was like something in a movie, not something you see in real life.’
Harris recalled constantly hearing the boyfriend abuse Johnson – who had a restraining order against him – and would often scream at her and break things in the apartment.
The alleged murder took place at the Linwood Park apartment building in Cypress Hills
‘She used to say that he used to slam her head in the house, like: ‘Why you got people in our business,’ he used to break stuff in the house, she would say: ‘It’s not your money,’ [and he would say] ‘I don’t give a f*ck, you’re mine, so everything that belongs to you is mine,’ Harris recalled to the Post.
He also allegedly screamed at Johnson often: ‘The only way you out is when your mother [is] gonna bury you, b**ch.’
‘He always said it in the hallway, we always heard it,’ Harris told the Post. ‘And you felt it.’
A different neighbor, who did not want to be named, recalled seeing trails of blood from her apartment to the front door one day while the couple argued in the lobby.
Harris, a domestic violence survivor herself, said Johnson had told her she was ‘so scared.’
Now, her family is blaming the building’s staff – which is privately owned by C&C Apartment Management and provides 24-hour security – for letting the boyfriend inside.
‘They know their tenants. They opened the door for him,’ Johnson’s aunt, who did not want to be named, told the Post. ‘She didn’t have no other boyfriend. They didn’t do enough. They could have prevented him from coming in there…They’re security, they’re trained to put somebody down. There is ways to stop him from coming in.
‘They dropped the ball here,’ she said.
Johnson’s boyfriend had previously been arrested in March for coming to the apartment. Johnson is also a client of HousingPlus, according to the Post. The organization provides stable housing to domestic violence survivors.
At an August 16 family dinner, Johnson had reportedly told her family that she was ‘done with him’ and was ‘happy.’
‘It’s just so sad. She was so skinny. This boy overpowered her…He was leeching off of her. He was using her kindness. Her mother is terminally ill and she needed a friend, and she thought that he was that friend,’ her aunt told the Post.
‘If she would have told us [the full extent of the abuse], we were able to help her, if we knew more.’
The aunt claimed she was trying to help her niece and that she warned the girl that ‘this is not love. It’s not going to get any better. It will only get worse.’
The family is now requesting the police release the boyfriend’s photo, so people can help find him and avoid him.
‘The public needs to be made aware of who he is. That’s why he’s so hard to pinpoint, nobody has his picture,’ she told the Post.