May 14, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
Police are investigating possible links between two homicides at the Bushwick Houses, where a 54-year-old man was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds on Sunday—just two days after his next-door neighbor, a 62-year-old woman, was found with a gunshot wound to the head.
Basil Gray, who lived alone in his fifth floor apartment, was found inside 140 Moore Street just before 4:40 p.m. on Sunday with multiple gunshot wounds throughout the torso, police say.
His body was found after members of his family went to check up on him after not hearing from him for days, NYPD Deputy Chief Michael Kemper said last night.
“They did not hear from him since Thursday evening,” Kemper said. “This was unusual.”
Gray’s next-door neighbor, Ana Devalle, was found with her hands bound and a gunshot wound to the head on Friday, police said. Officers went to the scene just before 7 p.m. after receiving reports of an assault there.
Kemper said a connection between the two deaths is unknown at the time, but that there are similarities in proximity and in the manner of death. There is also “similar” forensic evidence between the two apartments, he added.
Although Gray was found on Sunday, there’s a strong possibility that he died on Friday at around the same time as Devalle, Kemper said.
The motive behind the two deaths is also under investigation, but police say there was a small amount of money missing from Devalle’s apartment.
Neither incident saw a forced entry, police said.