Originally Posted by
JOTHAM SEDERSTROM and TONY SCLAFANI
BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM and TONY SCLAFANI
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
The smell of death led cops yesterday to a ritzy upper East Side building, where a confused 67-year-old woman told them she stuffed her husband's corpse in a suitcase to ship him to Arizona, police sources said.
"He always wanted to go to Arizona," Carole Fallon told cops who arrived at her cluttered 11th-floor apartment in the Plaza Tower on E. 60th St., where she lives with her 97-year-old mother, the sources said.
When asked about a foul odor, the women pointed to a suitcase packed with the rotting body of 87-year-old James Fallon, who died about two weeks ago, sources said.
Fallon, who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure, used a cane to get around and was in ailing health in recent months, neighbors said.
"I think they were confused," said William Fallon of Arizona, whose father married his stepmother 30 years ago. "It's not the way I pictured my father."
Police believe Fallon, a retired Los Angeles land developer, died of natural causes and the women panicked, cops said.
Carole Fallon and her mom, who both suffer from medical conditions, didn't appear to believe they did anything wrong, law enforcement sources said.
"They didn't know what to do. They didn't know who to call," a police source told the Daily News. "They figured they could call the post office and they could come and pick it up."
No foul play is suspected, police said. An autopsy is expected to be conducted by the city medical examiner's office today.
"He was old and he's in bad health and he probably passed away peacefully and for some reason, whatever happened, happened," William Fallon said.
The rancid odor, which seeped throughout the 34-story luxury co-op building between Lexington and Park Aves., forced horrified neighbors to recall another tenant whose body lay undiscovered after the city's 2003 power blackout.
"Well, I had known that smell," said tenant Harvey Riezerman, 73. "It was pretty obvious what it was."
"It smelled like garbage, like weird food," said another tenant, Dr. Eleanor Cole, a psychologist who lives on the 16th floor.
"It's very sad and I hope these people get some bereavement counseling," she said.
Carole Fallon told investigators she intended to send the decomposing package by mail to Arizona, sources said.
Fallon and her mother, who don't have any relatives in the immediate area, were taken to Bellevue Hospital to be looked after, sources said.
Cops hauled two pricey Louis Vuitton bags out of the 34-story building but it was not immediately clear if they had been used in the bizarre body storage.
The Plaza Tower was once home to famed Broadway performer Ethel Merman.
Originally published on December 27, 2005
67 year old woman stuffs dead husband in suitcase intending to ship him to Arizona
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