A married mother of two was found dead this weekend inside a duffle bag near a New York City park, where a trail of blood appeared to extend back to her home.
Around 8:10 a.m. Saturday, a passerby found the body of 51-year-old Orsolya Gaal in the bag, which was located along a sidewalk on Metropolitan Avenue near Forest Park in Queens, WCBS-TV reports.
Gaal was reportedly covered in blood and did not have any identification on her.
Investigating officers followed a blood trail that led to a home about a half-mile away on Juno Street, where police said they made an “emergency entry” into the residence, the New York Daily News reports.
Officers found Gaal’s 13-year-old son alone in the home. He confirmed that his mother lived at the house but he said he did not know where she was, according to the newspaper. Police questioned and later released him.
The blood trail could be seen from the home to a large spot of blood on the sidewalk at the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and 75th Avenue, according to the Daily News.
Meanwhile, social media indicated that Gaal’s husband, Howard Klein, and their 17-year-old son were traveling out of state. Klein had posted a tweet early Saturday that said they had just arrived in Portland, Oregon, and were planning to also visit Ann Arbor, Michigan, although the tweet appeared to have been deleted as of Sunday morning.
“Just landed Portland, OR before evaluating Ann Arbor again with my 17-year old son,” the tweet read, according to the Daily News.
The University of Michigan is located in Ann Arbor, where Klein’s LinkedIn page says he attended between 1986 and 1990, the newspaper reports. In a telephone interview with the New York Post, Klein said he was “in the middle of a terrible experience.”
Klein expressed gratitude that the younger son was safe, but said his family’s “lives are at stake,” according to the Post.
“There are concerns about our safety,” Klein told the Post. “Our lives are at risk.”
Authorities have not formally released any details about how Gaal died. However, sources told WCBS-TV that they suspect it was from blunt force trauma. Police are examining the victim’s phone records, according to the television station, and the sources added that the husband is not considered a suspect.
Gaal’s Facebook page indicates that she attended business school in Hungary, where she has family.
The account also shows that she donated money in February to a breast cancer research fundraiser organized by her 13-year-old son, who said on YouTube that he started the fundraiser in memory of a grandmother who died, according to the Daily News.
Neighbors told WCBS-TV that Gaal was a loving mother to her children.
“I’m going to miss her. I’m in shock, and we cannot believe that this is happening,” one neighbor told the television station.
Another neighbor told the Daily News that the family had lived at the home for about nine years.
“It’s a complete surprise. It’s a quiet neighborhood. They were a regular family,” John Blankson told the newspaper.
Nicola Blankson told WCBS-TV she saw Gaal as recently as Friday.
“She was in the garden with the dog and the son, so I heard them talking, just regular family stuff,” Blankson told the television station.
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Featured Image: Orsolya Gaal/Facebook
