A man whose body was stuffed inside a duffel bag and dumped next to a trash can on a Brooklyn sidewalk has been identified as a church-going Ghanaian musician, police sources and relatives said Thursday.
Joseph Owusu’s body was dumped by two people outside a church on Avenue L near E. 94th St. in Canarsie around 2 a.m. on Oct. 30, surveillance footage shows.
“We have no idea who would do this to my brother,” Owusu’s sibling, Koho Yeboah, told the Daily News. “People are evil.”
The city’s Medical Examiner has not yet determined how Owusu died.
Yeboah compared his 24-year-old brother’s death to the murder of 15-year-old Javits Frimpong, a Ghanaian immigrant living in the Bronx who was gunned down on his way to school.
Owusu’s parents immigrated from Ghana, but he was born in the Bronx. Still, both victims had their whole lives ahead of them, his brother said. Owusu’s body was found one day after Frimpong was chased down and shot dead in the Bronx.
“His death is just like Javitz’s, a young person cut down senselessly,” Yeboah, 34, said. “This is tough, especially for Ghanaian immigrants.”
Owusu was a member of the Ghanaian Methodist church in the Bronx, where he played organ and piano.
“He wanted to pursue computer science, but he never got the chance,” the victim’s brother said. “I want justice for Joseph.”
Surveillance video recovered by the Daily News shows a scrap collector finding the black cloth case used to hold a musical instrument that contained Owusu’s body. The man loaded the bag onto a hand cart and wheeled it to E. 93rd St., where he realized the satchel contained the victim’s body.
Earlier that morning, surveillance footage shows someone taking the case out of a car’s open trunk and laying it along the curb, then picking it up and turning it perpendicular to the curb. A second person emerges from the car and, after the body is dumped, apparently offers the first person something to smoke when the video clip cuts off.
“I’ve seen the videos. It hurts to see a loved one, my baby brother, someone I’ve watched grow up, in a bag,” said Yeboah. “I don’t recognize those people. Not a day in my life have I seen them.”
Owusu’s body was found next to a green garbage can, officials said.
“Someone played judge, jury, and executioner,” Yeboah said. “It’s just not right.”
Ghanaian actor Nana Tornado posted a tribute to Owusu on Instagram, writing, “Joseph, why? Who killed you? Thought we were supposed to meet for Thanksgiving. Thought you said I should bring you to Africa.”
Multiple witnesses said they watched as the bag containing Owusu’s body was dumped on the sidewalk, but never thought it would contain a body.
“The car just pulled up, and a man and a woman got out,” said witness Joseph Luckner, 51, a warehouse worker who was across the street at a late-night barbershop. “They dumped the body right there. We didn’t pay it any attention.”
“Of course, we didn’t realize it was a body,” he added. “I thought it was just trash night.”
“It’s disgusting. Disgusting to see,” said William Kennedy, owner of the Love Gifts Cape smoke shop located next door to the church where the body was ditched. “I’m new to the neighborhood. I don’t like things like this being dropped off in front of my place.”
There were no arrests.
Frimpong was struck in the abdomen around 9:24 a.m. on Crotona Place near E. 171st St., just one block south of where he lived in Mott Haven.
He was killed just one day after the first anniversary of his emigration from West Africa to live with his father in the Bronx.
The suspects who shot Frimpong remained at large.