BODY SAWED UP
Grisly murder in LES building
The body of a decapitated, dismembered tech CEO was found in his multimillion-dollar Lower East Side apartment Tuesday afternoon — sorted in plastic bags next to a power saw, sources told The Post.
Cops came upon the grisly scene shortly after 3:30 p.m. after a cousin requested that police conduct a welfare check on the 33-year-old victim at the building at 265 E. Houston St., the sources said.
The victim’s arms, and his legs below the knees, had been sawed off, the sources said.
Police believe the victim to be Fahim Saleh, a venture capitalist and the CEO of the Nigeria-based motorbike-sharing startup Gokada, the sources said.
Saleh is listed as the owner of the apartment, which he purchased last year for $2.25 million, records show.
Investigators are waiting for the medical examiner to confirm the victim’s identity.
“This is ugly,” one cop at the scene said.
Sources described the killing as an apparent targeted murder.
The victim was last seen on a surveillance camera at about 1:40 p.m. Monday as he entered an elevator whose doors open right into the seventh-floor apartment, the sources said.
The video appears to show the suspected killer carrying a bag, waiting to enter the elevator with the man.
The victim gives the suspect a puzzled look during an exchange as they ride up together.
As soon as the victim steps out into his apartment, the suspect is seen attacking him, according to the sources.
One law-enforcement source said the slaying looked like a “professional” job because almost no blood was left behind and the apartment had not been ransacked.
Another source added that it appeared that the killer had been “interrupted.”
“It didn’t look like the perp was done,” the source said.
It was not immediately clear when the suspect left the scene.
Police were later seen questioning a sobbing woman — whom sources identified as the victim’s cousin — in the building’s lobby.
“She was really upset. Crying. Shaking,” neighborhood resident Danny Faust said.
“She was just sitting there but you can tell her legs were shaking. She’s nervous. She was crying like, you know, wiping her eyes.
“She was screaming when she first came down.”
Faust said he went over to the building after seeing police converge on the scene.
“Dead body? OK,” he said. “But when you hear ‘chopped up’ and ‘dismembered,’ that’s it.
“That’s a sick type of mind for somebody to do that.”
Residents said the crime was particularly unsettling because it took place in what has typically been a quiet neighborhood.
“It’s shocking. It’s gruesome,” neighbor Jason Rivera, 45, told The Post.
“What could possibly be going through someone’s mind to decapitate him? Pure evilness.”
No further details were immediately available.