An 83-year-old New York City serial killer who spent more than half of her life in state prison for murdering two ex-girlfriends is now being detained for the killing of another woman whose dismembered body appeared in Brooklyn last week, Mag Grand has learned.
Last week, the serial killer, Harvey Marcelin, who identifies as a transgender woman, was allegedly caught on surveillance camera dumping human remains near her apartment, court records show. Marcelin was busted and charged with concealment of a human corpse.
After obtaining a search warrant, cops discovered “a human head” in Marcelin’s home in Cypress Hills. In addition, police officers also recovered electric saws the serial killer bought at Home Depot, according to a criminal complaint and local sources.
The gruesome case unfolded last week when the torso belonging to the 68-year-old victim, Susan Layden, was recovered from a shopping cart that was dumped at the corner of Pennsylvania and Atlantic avenues — not far from Marcelin’s apartment, sources said.
Investigators later discovered Layden’s leg a few blocks north, cops said, adding that the victim’s arm is still missing.
Being convicted of murder twice already, Marcelin could now face fresh murder charges in Layden’s death, adding to her existing disturbing criminal history, authorities said.
Marcelin spent close to sixty years in state prison on murder and manslaughter convictions dating to 1963, according to state prison records.
On April 18, 1963, the octogenarian shot and killed her live-in girlfriend, Jacqueline Bonds, inside the couple’s Manhattan apartment, according to sources. Marcelin snapped and shot Jacqueline three times when the woman said she was leaving her.
Marcelin received 20 years-to-life in prison for her crime that same year but was released on lifetime parole in May 1984, state prison records show.
Less than a year after being freed from prison, Marcelin was busted again for stabbing another live-in girlfriend to death. The killer stuffed her second victim’s body into a bag she’d dumped on the street near Central Park, according to sources and court records.
In that second case in 1986, Marcelin was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to a 6-to-12-year term in prison.
Marcelin, who at one hearing, admitted that she had “a problem with women,” was denied parole several times, sources said.
She was released from the Cayuga Correctional Facility upstate in late 2019, the records show.
In Marcelin’s fresh case, Layden was spotted on surveillance camera entering Marcelin’s apartment on Feb. 27. The surveillance video showed Layden wheeling “a multi-colored bag with a flower decal” on it as she was entering the apartment, according to the criminal complaint.
Feb. 27 was the last time Layden was seen alive, prosecutors said. Three days later, Marcelin was caught on camera wheeling the same bag out of the building, the complaint said.
A human torso was discovered inside the bag the following day, the court document said.
Marcelin is presently being held without bail at Riker’s Island and is to appear in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Thursday. The case is still under investigation, said the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
