Two Killed for Their Apartments, Cops Say

May 29, 2001 -- Two apartments in a New York City public housing project are believed to be the motives in the killings of a man and woman.

Bernard Perez, 20, and Rahman Williams, 21, have been charged with first-degree murder in the killing and dismemberment of a 37-year-old man whose apartment they allegedly moved into on Saturday.

Police said this isn't the first time the two have struck. Perez is facing a murder charge in the death of a woman whose body was found on May 23 in the Harlem River, and Williams is also suspected of being involved.

The two men had lived in her apartment since January, when the woman disappeared, police said.

After finding severed hands in the shrubs outside the Dyckman Houses in Upper Manhattan, several dozen police officers, search dogs, and crime scene investigators were called in to look for the rest of the body.

"About two blocks down, in the area where the garbage compactors are stored for this complex, we found some additional plastic bags," New York Police Department Chief of Detectives William Allee said. "In one we found two severed legs. In the other we found a torso of a male."

Police identified the slain man as Jerry Pollard

Police say they went to his 10th Avenue apartment at 3 a.m. Monday after developing information earlier in the day.

Dumping the Evidence

According to police sources quoted in the New York Daily News, a man had stopped a patrol car and told police he had seen severed body parts in an apartment in the housing project, and as officers arrived to investigate, plastic bags containing parts of a body were thrown out of a window.

Once inside the apartment, police found Perez and Williams, the sources said. Both suspects were taken into custody and charged with the murder.

"When they entered into the apartment, they found in the bathroom, a bathtub that had blood and water in it," Allee said. "There were some cutting tools. There was blood on some clothing."

Perez, who is on parole for an armed robbery conviction, was charged with murder in the strangling death of Doris Drakeford, 44, who also lived in the same building.

Drakeford was killed in January, though her strangled body was only found floating in the Harlem River on Thursday.

Police sources said Perez confessed to both killings, according to the New York Post.

A Confession, and Freedom

The sources said Perez told police he killed Pollard because "he was a crackhead and no one would miss him," and said he knew Drakeford from when the two "used to get high together," the Post reported.

Perez and Williams reportedly were discovered living in Drakeford's apartment on Friday, by police investigating her murder. According to the Post, Perez told police he had helped someone dispose of Drakeford's body, but did not kill her — and they let him go.

On Saturday, the two men allegedly found their new home — Pollard's apartment.

Many residents of the city housing development didn't know the victims or the suspects, but say they're now concerned about their own safety.

"It's horrible, because I live right on the 13th floor and I didn't hear a thing," one resident said. "It's scary, because my granddaughter comes to visit with my son and it's just frightening."

WABC-TV contributed to this report.