US News

IN BED WITH DEAD LOVER

A sicko Chinatown artist strangled his new girlfriend – and then slept beside her rotting corpse for two nights, investigators said yesterday.

After the killing, Michael Lenahan, 29, wrote an apology on the wall and later called his brother to admit, “I screwed up,” investigators said.

The brother called their mom, who found the body and notified cops.

Lenahan was arrested Tuesday night and confessed to police, investigators said. He was charged with second-degree murder and held without bail at his arraignment yesterday.

Relatives told cops that Lenahan, who suffers from a debilitating spinal disease, had been depressed and suicidal recently.

On Saturday night, he and his girlfriend, a woman in her 30s whose name was withheld pending family notification, went to Rick’s Cabaret, a topless bar on West 33rd Street, where he spent $50 to buy her lap dances, investigators said.

After Rick’s, they went back to his apartment on the 39th floor of 20 Confucius Plaza, a place he shares with his ailing grandmother, who is in her 80s.

The doorman told cops they were smiling and happy as they came in.

On Sunday, however, the couple, who had been dating for just a week, got into an argument.

Lenahan demanded the $50 back. The woman refused and kicked him in the groin.

Lenahan then lost it, grabbed her by the throat and choked her, investigators said.

He left her body lying on his bed and scrawled the apology, which was accompanied by a bizarre drawing, investigators said.

On Sunday and Monday nights, he slept beside the decaying body, they said.

Then on Tuesday, he called his brother, who lives in New Jersey, and allegedly admitted what he had done. The brother called their mother, who went to the apartment with a cousin and found the body. She called 911.

Lenahan had fled, but cops found him at a McDonald’s near the South Street Seaport.

The suspect, who sources said has an arrest record for grand larceny, displays his sculptures and Chinese-themed paintings on his MySpace.com Web page.

He suffers from spina bifida, a disease in which the spinal column does not form properly. Investigators found a prescription for marijuana, issued in San Francisco, to ease his pain.

A neighbor said Lenahan has had many operations.

“He’s had a limp ever since he was a kid. He always looks like he’s in pain,” said the neighbor.

“I was surprised when I learned he was 29,” she added. “He looks like a kid. He acts like a kid.”

Lenahan told cops he met the girl through a friend a week before. The building’s security tape shows the two coming in and out several times.

Additional reporting by Irene Liu and Philip Messing

larry.celona@nypost.com