Slain & burned

Man kills gal, sets body ablaze, slashes own throat

SHE WAS dressed for a date, not for death.

A woman in a pair of black high-heeled shoes was killed in an East Harlem high-rise, dragged 200 feet across the street in a plastic bag and set afire in a second building as stunned witnesses gaped.

A suicidal man who gashed his wrist and slashed his throat was taken into custody by cops Tuesday morning, with the man’s sister insisting he had nothing to do with the killing.

Nelson Quinones, 27, “did nothing wrong,” claimed sibling Jacqueline Thomas. “This was not him, and I’m going to get to the bottom of this. He’s my baby brother. He would never, ever do something like this.”

Residents of the E. 105th St. building where 23-year-old Shantee Nakhid was burned told a gruesome tale of a man dragging a bag leaking blood out of the elevator about 6:50 a.m.

The man then set the lower half of the body on fire before fleeing.

“It was pretty bad, a lot (of blood) pretty much,” said Susan Lopez, 62, who was visiting with her mother-in-law when the killer appeared on the ninth floor.

“We heard a (fire) chief call and said, ‘It’s a body!’ ” said Lopez. “Her legs were on fire. This is unbelievable.”

Victor Ortiz, who lives on the ninth floor, watched as the man “put some fire to the person in the plastic bag.”

A trail of gore stretched from the building on Park Ave., where cops believe the killing occurred, to the building down the block where the body was dumped.

“We have blood in the hallway, in the lobby and in the elevators,” said NYPD Deputy Chief Christopher McCormack. “We have a blood trail that led us across the street.”

Friends of Quinones said he was depressed after losing his job a year ago, and he lived with his mom and two other people on the 12th floor of the Park Ave. building that the body was dragged from.

A police source said the relationship between Quinones and Nakhid, was unclear.

The man’s suicide attempt was tied to “a domestic situation with his girlfriend,” said Thomas. “That’s not her (who died). She’s fine.”

Quinones, bleeding from his self-inflicted wounds, was rushed to Harlem Hospital. He was expected to survive.

It was not immediately known how Nakhid was killed.