Windsor Terrace Dry Cleaner Found Dead in Store

The dead body of a dry cleaning business owner was found in her store yesterday morning. Police say Kyung-Sook Woo, 63, who owned the Eden Dry Cleaners at 10th Avenue and Windsor Place in Windsor Terrace, was found face down in the store's bathroom. She had blood behind her ear. The medical examiner is conducting an autopsy, but police suspect foul play and were at the store late last night, still looking for evidence.

Woo was found around 8:30 a.m. by a neighbor, Dan Alman, who saw a store employee waiting outside--the stores usually opened at 7 a.m. Police say her purse was on the counter and her car, a white Honda Accord, is missing.

Neighbors who remembered Woo were shocked and upset. A woman recounted to the Times that Woo wouldn't charge her for hemming and placing buttons "because she knew I couldn't sew to save my life" and another said, "The beads on my wedding dress were just all wrong, and it was two days before my wedding. She fixed it, no problem." They left flowers and candles outside the store.

The News reports her elder son, who was worried when she didn't answer his calls Thursday night, arrived at the store "only to be greeted with word of his mother's slaying." Woo had lived in a Flushing apartment, with her teenage son (her diabetic husband, who could no longer work at the business, had moved to a nursing home). Her super told NY1, "Anytime you see her she was smiling, always had a smile on her face."

According to WCBS 2, "Neighbors say a man not from the neighborhood had been hanging around outside the cleaners for a couple of hours yesterday and the victim had recently come down to a nearby deli to ask about the man." And WNBC says, according to witnesses, a "5-foot-8 black man in his early 20s wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap" was "looking inside and outside" the cleaners. The police are calling him a "person of interest."

If anyone has information (the Honda's license plate is E H S 7392), call Crimestoppers at 800-577-TIPS.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on May 17, 2008 10:00 AM

Comments [rss]

jukuboy

No one deserves to die like this and it's horrible.

That said, I took this lady to court because she ruined 400 dollars worth of my clothes. I tried to be nice and work it out with her. She was one of the rudest people I have ever met. She cussed me up and down at the courthouse after she lost.

I only say this because media loves to say things like 'she was so sweet and gentle and kind'. Well, not always.

H0llyG0lightly

She was my dry cleaner. She pressed my wedding gown.

Windsor Terrance is a very safe neighborhood, and this is an alarming shock to all of its residents. We all know each other, so any suspicious looking man, black or white, is actually an unusual sighting.

She was a very sweet woman, and it is an absolute tragedy that this happened to her.

sonyactivision

Hoo Sook Woo?

annieuro

To comment #3: copy, paste, copy, paste....

thejuice

"a man not from the neighborhood"-- ha, i love euphemisms like that.

babyhitler

Finally, After all those years of crimes against blacks from asians we get the reverse.

neoconfascist

Well, now you understand why civilized people in our society don't give a rat's azz about what happened to Sean Bell.

Albert Sharpton

Her last name reminds me of a Russel Peters joke about Asians.

Albert Sharpton

wtf. is she 63 yo , 52yo or in her 40's? The WNBC article is mad wack and makes no sense.

"NEW YORK -- Police suspect foul play after the body of a 52-year-old woman was discovered inside a Brooklyn dry cleaner where she worked.

Kyung-Sook Woo of Flushing was found Friday morning face-down inside a bathroom. Her car was missing. The victim's son found her body.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says there was dried blood at the scene. But the cause of death for the woman, who was in her 40s, has not yet been determined."

dooWOP

Yes, these people are always "of interest" - that's why we have racial profiling.

Nick S

"5-foot-8 black man in his early 20s wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap"

well that narrows it down. i saw about 60 possible suspects while walking down flatbush yesterday.