MURDER SUSPECT IS AT PINES; LINKED TO N.Y. ARTIST’S DEATH

By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Saturday, August 3, 1991

The Record (New Jersey) | Two Star B | NEWS | Page A03

A 23-year-old Bronx woman, under psychiatric care at Bergen Pines County Hospital following a disturbance in Palisades Park on Thursday, is awaiting extradition to New York City as a suspect in the murder of a 93-year-old woman, police said.
Michelle McWilliams pushed her way into amateur painter’s Mathilde Poggensee’s Bronx home looking for money to buy drugs, Detective Thomas Aiello said Friday.
A neighbor who looked in regularly on the award-winning artist, who was said to be losing her hearing and sight in recent years, found Poggensee on Wednesday night face down on the living room floor, her mouth gagged and her arms tied behind her back with an electrical cord, Aiello said.
She died of asphyxiation, caused by the gagging, and multiple rib injuries, according to a medical examiner’s report. Police think Poggensee was attacked Sunday or Monday.
Police do not know why or how McWilliams came to New Jersey. Palisades Park Police Capt. Frank Martini said borough officers picked up McWilliams, barefoot and unkempt, about 9 a.m. Thursday when they went to a Roff Avenue taxi stand where a disturbance had been reported. McWilliams was violent and appeared to be emotionally disturbed, he said.
“We did not know she was wanted in New York at that time,” Martini said.
It was discovered during routine questioning before she was committed for psychiatric evaluation that a pocketbook in McWilliams possession was one of the items taken from Poggensee’s home after it was ransacked, Aiello said.
McWilliams mother, who was informed by the hospital that her daughter was under their care, informed police of her whereabouts when 43rd Precinct detectives called her Thursday morning, Aiello added.
McWilliams faces charges of second-degree murder and robbery in New York, Aiello said.

Keywords: MURDER; NEW YORK CITY; PALISADES PARK; DRUG; PARAMUS; MENTAL; ART

ID: 17351422 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)