The naked body of a high-end escort was stuffed into a 55-gallon drum in New York City and dumped in New Jersey, The Post has learned.
The grim discovery was made on the morning of Aug. 13 when Ridgefield Park residents spotted the large plastic container in the street at Hobart Street and Teaneck Road and noticed a foul smell, according to New Jersey police and NYPD sources.
Surveillance video shows the barrel being carted out from 95 Wall St. — a high-end apartment building in the Financial District — and loaded into a U-Haul van around 10:45 p.m. the night prior, according to police sources.
A security guard at the building questioned the drum when it was brought in, but the man said he was moving and was seen later rolling it out on a luggage rack, sources said.
The woman was later identified as Nicole Flanagan after cops ran her prints, according to a source, who said the 42-year-old had previously been picked up for prostitution.
Flanagan is on surveillance video entering the building that night with a man, who has been identified by investigators, according to sources.
The building, which is a converted office space, rents out apartments on Airbnb, according to online reviews, and has a number of complaints on file with the NYPD, police said.
On Thursday, a building resident who lives on the 22nd floor said police knocked down his neighbor’s door at about 11 a.m. — and have focused their investigation on that unit, which he said has been occupied by two men in their mid-20s.
“The police are still up there and they’re looking for the two guys,” the resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Post from outside the building.
“I know them. I see them all the time,” he said of the two men.
The neighbor said he heard the duo inside their apartment at about 11 p.m. Wednesday — but by the time police arrived Thursday morning they had fled.
“The police asked me if I smelled anything funny,” the man said.
“But [the two men] smoked pot 24/7. I just smelled pot and bad air freshener, but I didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary,” he recalled.
The two men moved into the building during the pandemic and had worked out some sort of living arrangement with the apartment’s leaseholder, the neighbor said.
“They were cool looking, young. You wouldn’t think anything of them. They were very respectful to me and always would start a conversation with me in the hall,” the neighbor said.
Meanwhile, a Bergen County medical examiner found no signs of injury on the woman’s body and ordered a toxicology report, sources added.
Local police referred questions to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, which did not immediately respond Thursday.
Last week, the county agency said it was investigating ” the circumstances of the death and the origin of the container” but did not release the woman’s name nor NYC connection.
The NYPD was brought in on the death investigation by New Jersey police on Wednesday, sources said.
Cops are still searching for the U-Haul, sources added.
