Sorrow & questions after body is found

Mysterious death at city-aided housing

No one noticed when Janette O’Sullivan died in her East Harlem apartment.

As many as 10 days passed before anyone found her.

When someone finally did, they discovered her decaying corpse splayed out across a bed.

The shocking discovery has sent a wave of sorrow and fear through the city-subsidized supportive housing building that O’Sullivan, who was in the process of transitioning from man to woman, called home.

A friend described O’Sullivan’s body as being stretched out as if “on a cross,” her cell phone missing and her door locked, when police found her on Oct. 25.

“You could taste death,” a neighbor said of the stench when the door was finally opened. “It’s not something you should be breathing in.”

The results of an autopsy are still pending further study, according to the city medical examiner. Police suspect O’Sullivan, 28, died of a medical condition or due to substance abuse, sources said.

But for neighbor and best friend Megan McCutcheon, her death has raised many questions.

One neighbor told the Daily News it was an open secret that O’Sullivan smoked crack in her apartment. And McCutcheon said O’Sullivan was living with HIV and suggested it was well-known that O’Sullivan was doing sex work in her apartment.

“He had a person in his apartment, and he came down to escort another man in a hoodie upstairs,” McCutcheon said, referring to O’Sullivan by the male pronoun, of the last day she saw her alive. “It’s suspicious.”

An NYPD source said it was not yet clear when O’Sullivan died or how long her body was decomposing. McCutcheon said it was 10 days.

McCutcheon and neighbors are upset nonprofit Good Shepherd Services, which runs the 51-unit McLaughlin East Harlem Residence where O’Sullivan lived, didn’t check on O’Sullivan much sooner.

One employee at the building told The News they tried.

“We kept trying to reach her for four or five days, but there was never any answer,” the worker said.

O’Sullivan’s body was discovered when a concerned acquaintance went into her room, the police source said.

But a Good Shepherd spokeswoman said employees from the nonprofit first entered the room because they had not seen O’Sullivan in 10 days.

O’Sullivan, who went by the name of Jabari when she identified as a man, studied at Baruch College, loved journalism and writing, and performed as a standup comedian around the city at venues including the Gotham Comedy Club.

A city Health Department spokeswoman said that O’Sullivan lived in what is termed a “community” unit, one of 35, in which Good Shepherd is not required to provide checkins. Check-ins are required in the building’s 16 supportive housing units.

Good Shepherd has a $1.69 million contract with the city Health Department to operate the E. 110th Street residence, city records show.

The building houses families at serious risk of becoming homeless and young adults coming out of foster care, Good Shepherd’s contract with the Health Department shows.