The two charred corpses found in a fire raveged Bronx apartment yesterday were apparently butchered or shot — and an empty safe was left open in the closet, sources told The Post today.
“Both victims appear to have been stabbed multiple times,” a law enforcement source said, adding that “much drug paraphernalia” was recovered from the basement apartment they shared in Castle Hill.
While it was unclear if a knife was found, a 9MM was recovered from a nightstand but it had no ammunition, the source said.
A neighbor, Keith Mussington, 29, watched one of the bodies being hauled outside the building — and thought he saw a gunshot wound.
“The cops were just putting a blue sheet over him and I saw blood seeping from the top of his head, Mussington said.
“It looked very suspicious – it looked like it could have been a gunshot wound.”
The law enforcement source identified one of the deceased as Kenny Sanchez, 24. The other victim, also 24, was so badly burned that authorities need to check dental records, but they believe he’s Sanchez’s roommate.
The source also said the battery was missing from the smoke alarm, leading investigators to believe that someone may have taken it.
Police suspect foul play in the brutal deaths, but the medical examiner’s office will make the final determination.
The fire erupted at 11:04 a.m. yesterday in a basement apartment at a Story Avenue building, causing 12 units and sixty firefighters to race to the scene, officials said.
Within an hour, the smokeeaters knocked down the fire only to make a grisly discovery in the bedroom — the bodies of two unidentified men in their 20’s, sources said.
Neighbors told The Post they heard “loud banging” that sounded “like someone was fighting” in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Neighbors also said three men, all aged under 30, had moved into apartment 1E just two weeks ago.
Next door neighbor Kim Williams said “I heard a lot of loud banging against the walls” in the early hours of the morning.
“It sound(ed) like someone was fighting next door and the banging wouldn’t stop,” she added. “They were three young men who just moved in. I was extremely worried because I have my seven-month-old grandson, my daughter and my dog all in the house. My daughter was shaken up because she woke up and her whole bedroom was cloudy with smoke.”
Her daughter, Tasi Lee, 20, said she initially thought the smell of smoke “was actually the radiator”, until she saw “that it was cloudy”.
“I realized that the smell was a fire,” she said. “I opened up the front door and I saw all the neighbors outside. I didn’t really know them – I just spoke to one of the guys who moved in. I would say ‘Hi’ when I saw them but I would just keep on moving.”