Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press The police on Tuesday guarded one of the locations in the Bronx where a dismembered body was found in plastic bags.The son of a woman whose body was found dismembered and deposited in bags around a Bronx neighborhood was charged on Wednesday with two felonies related to the improper disposal of her body, as detectives continued questioning him and a friend about the killing itself.
The police charged the son, identified as Bashid McLean, 23, and the friend, William Harris, 26, with unlawful dissection of a human body and hindering prosecution, accusing them of having worked together to cut up the dead body of Mr. McLean’s 45-year-old mother, Tanya Byrd.
In addition, the police charged Mr. Harris with possession of stolen property and marijuana possession.
The circumstances of Ms. Byrd’s death remains under investigation. The police said Mr. McLean and Mr. Harris accused each other of having killed her.
The medical examiner has yet to determine a cause of death.
The police said that the two men made the task of determining the cause much more difficult because of the grisly method by which they disposed of her body, cutting it into pieces with a saw and distributing the remains in four bags around Melrose in the Bronx.
Detectives found evidence in Ms. Byrdâ! €™s apartment - a few blocks from the area where her body was found by a dog-walker early Tuesday morning - that she had been dismembered there, including a box for a saw, the police said.
Friends remembered Ms. Byrd as a friendly mother of a young son with Down syndrome and an older son, Mr. McLean, who was withdrawn.
At least one neighbor recalled regularly hearing a woman yelling in Ms. Byrd’s apartment.
