A person with a lengthy criminal past has been arrested and charged after a woman was discovered dead from a gunshot wound, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and disposed of with the garbage, according to sources within law enforcement.
Chad Irish, aged 55—who has a sibling with the same name and a criminal history himself—faces charges of hiding a dead body, illegal possession of a weapon, and making threats. Authorities questioned him on Monday in connection to the passing of 31-year-old Yazmeen Williams, as per reports.
While he hasn’t been formally accused of causing Williams’ death, Irish is considered the primary suspect in the investigation, police sources revealed.
The Chief of Detectives for the NYPD, Joseph Kenny, declared during a briefing that security footage captures a man in a wheelchair dragging Williams’ body. “We traced that footage back to the Strauss Houses where our suspect, Chad Irish, can be seen taking the package, the sleeping bag, from the area using his wheelchair,” Kenny stated.
Neighbors were able to identify Williams. “When her body was removed from the sleeping bag, a bullet was found at the back of her head, indicating she was shot there,” Kenny described. “Therefore, we are treating this as a homicide investigation.”
Kenny noted that Williams sometimes stayed with Irish. “I can’t confirm if their relationship was romantic or purely practical,” he mentioned. “She would spend time at his place. There may have been some drug-related activities involved.”
Prior to this incident, Irish had 21 convictions on his record. In 1994, he served a three-year sentence for a failed attempt to cause an explosion at his uncle’s residence in the Bronx by tampering with a gas line and propane tanks.
The recent charges of making threats and possessing illegal weapons against Irish have no connection to Williams’ passing but instead relate to unresolved warrants from a prior event.
On the day of Irish’s questioning about Williams’ death, a group of enraged locals confronted him. In the crowd was the grieving mother of the victim, Nicole Williams. She came face to face with Irish as the authorities wheeled him out of the Straus Houses, a housing complex in Kips Bay managed by NYCHA, and placed him into an ambulance.
Video footage shows one man striking Irish while others shouted “kill him.”
Williams’ body was discovered inside the sleeping bag beside a pile of rubbish on East 27th Street in Manhattan late Friday night.
