A 29-year-old woman scheduled to testify in a kidnapping case today was possibly thrown from a Harlem building yesterday morning. Joy Blackman, who was a witness to a kidnapping and was also a witness against her accused rapist in a separate case, was found dead in an alleyway at 145 West 145th Street. The building's roof alarm had been triggered between 1:15 a.m. and 2:15 a.m., Newsday reports no one seemed to check the roof.......

Mini Butterfly, by j_bary at flickrToday on the Gothamis Newsmap: a bank robbery on 40th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan, a stabbing on Morris Ave. and East 190th St. in the Bronx, and a sinkhole on 68th St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan. The original and exisiting Coney Island boardwalk originated from wood chopped down from the Amazon rainforest. The new and improved CI boardwalk will be made of plastic, made from oil.......

Untitled, by Pabo76 at flickrToday on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Cranford St. and Amboy Rd. on Staten Island, a bank robbery on East Gun Hill Rd. in the Bronx, and a carjacking on the Horace Harding Expressway and 108th St. in Queens. Update on the 14-year-old girl who was killed and stuffed into a boiler by her father: The ME's office found that she was pregnant - and they are testing......

Just a little over two weeks after his death, and as his family prepares to bury him, the NYC medical examiner has given the results of Heath Ledger's toxicology report. The official word is that the actor died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. A lot of prescription drugs. The ME's spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, made the following statement: "Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone,......

Photographs outside Broome Street The NYC Medical Examiner's office says Heath Ledger's autopsy is inconclusive, citing the need to more tests. Spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said, "The autopsy is inconclusive and we have to do further testing which includes toxicology and tissue testing. We expect to have results in about 10 days to two weeks." Initial reports suggested pills were found scattered around the actor's body, prompting speculation that Ledger could have committed suicide. Ledger's......

Yesterday, the body of a man who had been stabbed to death was discovered on a handball court in the Little Neck section of Queens. The murder is the first in the neighborhood since 1994. A passerby found the body in Admiral Park, near the chain-link fence. The ME's office is conducting an autopsy, but the victim, 35-year-old Damingo Hernandez, had stab wounds in the torso and slash marks on his face, according to the......

A "rising star" in the Fire Department was found with three gunshot to the head in his Staten Island home Sunday morning. The ME's office said that Douglas J. Mercereau's death was a homicide. It's believed that his 38-year-old wife, Janet Redmond-Mercereau, is a suspect (the Daily News calls her the "prime suspect"). She called 911 around 8:25AM on Sunday, saying she found her husband's body. The Staten Island Advance says the couple had "started......

The medical examiner's office said the autopsy of top long distance runner Ryan Shay is inconclusive. Shay collapsed during the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials on Saturday in Central Park and died shortly after. The ME's office said, "We want to take a closer look at the heart tissue," and will probably come to a conclusion in a week. His father had revealed his son was diagnosed with an enlarged heart at age 14, and Joe......

The police are questioning a man who had been registered a room in a West 43rd Street hotel where a woman's body was found on Thursday. Clarence Dean, a 35-year-old "fugitive" sex offender from Alabama, had checked out of the room 608 at the Hotel Carter, an inexpensive hotel near 8th Avenue popular with tourists. He was not charged with any crime, but police picked him up after seeing him at Park Avenue and East......

On Sunday, a Brooklyn woman who took in homeless men was found dead in her apartment. The Post reported that neighbors, who had not seen Young since Thursday, noticed a foul smell and eventually Geraldine Young's son found her "bloated and naked" body in a locked room. The ME's office's autopsy was inconclusive, and the police have yet to classify the death as a murder. Young lived in a brownstone at 1274 Bergen Street and......

Some more details about the death of the man whose body was found at 6th Avenue and 10th Street in Greenwich Village early yesterday morning. Forty-five-year-old Eric Wishnie had been a producer at NBC News, but was fired last September for alcohol and pill addiction. Additionally, he had been recently estranged with his wife, NBC correspondent Dawn Fratangelo. The Daily News reports "A couple in a taxi heading north on Sixth Ave. called 911 about......

A 21-year-old MIT student was found dead on a Union Square building rooftop on Sunday night. Police believe that James Albrecht fell from the 243 East 14th Street onto the roof of a neighboring building, but it's unclear whether Albrecht fell or was pushed. Friends tell the Sun that Albrecht was at a Murray Hill restaurant for a party Saturday night, and then left around 2AM. According to the Post, a witness saw Albrecht on......

There was a strange unmapped incident on the Gothamist Newsmap yesterday afternoon: "Founded [sic] Bones" in the Bronx. It turns out that a contractor found some bones - and a rusted gun - "embedded in cement," according to WNBC 4. Jim Bailey was knocking down a concrete wall when he discovered three bones. He told the AP, "When we knocked the walls down, we just noticed a piece of bone sticking up." WNBC has a......

When the Fire Department responded to a two-alarm fire around 1:30AM yesterday in Bedford-Stuyvesant, they discovered that a 31-year-old woman and her 4-year-old daughter. And the woman, Wanette Douglas, had been strangled and stabbed 17 times. The ME's office classified the death as a homicide, and the police believe the killer set her home on fire to hide the murder. The Post says the killer threw a lit book of matches "onto the bedding -......

Carlton Ingleton, an artist who also taught at Medgar Evers Colleges, was beaten to death by his son in his Crown Heights apartment. His son Assawa Ingleton had held his father, mother, pregnant wife, and their two children hostage for six hours, during which the son beat his father. The Daily News reports that when someone would try to help the father, Assawa Ingleton would hit him again. The ME's office said that Carlton Ingleton......

The police have charged a Harlem couple with their baby's murder. Teresa Flores and Rufino Bedoya-Flores were arrested after police interviews revealed they shook and hit baby Sebastian in an attempt to quiet him. According to the NY Times, Flores yelled and slapped the baby, and later put a sheet over his face: "She placed her hand over his nose and mouth and pressed a bedsheet hard against his neck." Then Bedoya-Flores hit and shook......

Yesterday, a newborn baby girl with her umbilical cord still attached was found outside the Eastchester Gardens housing complex in the Bronx. A 911 caller tipped authorities, who questioned a 14 year old girl who may be the mother after dogs tracked the scent to a fifth floor apartment. The girl, Latisha Burns, was at her junior high school when the police took her for questioning; a classmate told the Daily News, "She looked like......

A horrifying tragedy in Brooklyn: Sadier Jean Noel, who had jumped in front of a train on Monday as her 9 year old son's dead body was found in her apartment, admitted that "demons overtook her" and that she killed her son. Sadier Jean Noel said that son Knil was brooding about his birthday celebration from the day before - the family went to Junior's but Knil was upset an invited friend wasn't able to......

Diego Pillco, the construction worker who confessed to killing actress Adrienne Shelly last week during a noise dispute, was arraigned in Criminal Court and held without bail yesterday. Pillco, a 19 year old illegal immigrant from Ecuador, told the police that he had punched Shelly and, fearing she was dead, staged a suicide scene by hanging her from a shower rod. The Manhattan assistant district attorney Marit DeLozier said that Shelly died from "compression to......

Yesterday, the police announced that the death of actress-director Adrienne Shelly was murder, not suicide. Shelly's husband had found her body hanging from a shower rod in the Greenwich Village apartment she used as an office last week, leading the police to initially suspect she committed suicide. But they did find an unknown shoeprint in the bathroom, and the shoeprint turned out to belong to a construction worker doing renovations on a downstairs apartment Diego......

Adrienne Shelley, the actress of seminal independent movies Trust and The Unbelievable Truth, was found dead on Wednesday in her Greenwich Village office. Her husband Andrew Ostroy found her hanging from a shower rod in the bathroom in an Abingdon Square building. The Post reports that the police are "inclined" to beileve it was suicide (no signs of a struggle or forced entry at the door) but they are "investigating sneaker prints in the bathtub......

Preston Hertzog, the 4 month old baby whose brain suffered serious injuries possibly due to his parents's shaking, died Wednesday at Schneider Children's Hospital in New Hyde Park. Parents Antonio Patterson and Tamira Hertzog had been investigated by the Administration for Children's Services over the 2000 death of an infant and were currently meeting with ACS over abuse claims on another child, and the couple hid Hertzog's pregnancy from ACS workers. They were called "extremely......

While excavating a manhole, Con Ed workers found more human remains from September 11. The manhole was in the northwest corner, near where the names of victims are reading during September 11 anniversary ceremonies. The workers had actually cleared out rubble with a vacuum pump on Wednesday and took the debris to a Con Ed operations site in Chelsea. Yesterday, a contractor noticed bones, ID cards and wallets in an underground junction box, and he......

As we appreciate the fact that last week's heat wave was last week, the NY Times' Sewell Chan has an article about that the little-known fact that turned-off appliances that are still plugged-in still draw electricity. We mentioned the "standby mode" issue last week, noting that is why Con Ed asks people to actually unplug TVs, printers, computers, and the like when the power demand is high. (It probably isn't a bad idea to unplug......

- Thank God, the Discovery shuttle's launch went well - Bizarre confrontation at a Brooklyn supermarket leaves a police officer slashed - People are visiting the Freedom Tower's cornerstone in Hauppauge - The two separate drowning deaths leave mothers devastated - The Jews for Jesus are hitting NYC with its biggest group of missionaries ever - The ME's office says it'll take a few days to perform the autopsy on the full-term baby found......

Police believe that drugs caused a 23 year old Brooklyn resident jumped out of a friend's 8th floor window in Midtown yesterday morning. Pitman and his girlfriend were hanging out with other friends in his girlfriend's cousins' apartment. Police say Pitman, who was already drunk, smoked pot and acted erractically. A 4th floor tenant went to the 8th floor, only to see Pitman "flipping out, banging the walls" and trying to attack others. Shortly after......

The family of Milton Rocano wondered why he hadn't come home after working at City Recycling in Greenpoint on Saturday. When Rocano's sister went to the plant to ask where he was, she found that his wallet and clothes were still there, but a supervisor told her he'd show up in a few days. Unfortunately, Rocano's body was found in a Melville dump - it turns out that another employee had dumped tons of scrap......

There are three strange deaths - two murders, one maybe murder - from this weekend: - The body of a John Jay College of Criminal Justice student was found on Fountain Avenue near the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. Imette St. Guillen was last seen on Friday night at the Pioneer Bar on Bowery - she stayed behind while her roommates went home. St. Guillen's face was duct taped, her hands and legs bound, and her......

This refrain has become sickeningly familiar : A child died in the Bronx, and his family was being investigated by the Administration for Children's Services. Authorities believe that little Quachon Brown was "thrown like a rag doll" by his mother's boyfriend for knocking over a TV set. and he was found with a smashed skull in his Norwood apartment. Alicia Brown (called Aleishia Smith in the Daily News) and Jose Calderon were questioned about the......

A Bronx woman's 2 year old daughter died in their cold apartment - and the mother is blaming it on the lack of heat. Accoding to the Daily News, Jasmine Morales says that her apartment was so cold that she wrapped her baby Jaylee in "a large, heavy fleece blanket in her bassinet," and now she thinks Jaylee suffocated. Morales says she made numerous complaints, including calling 311 and contacting Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion's......