By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-08-08 19:45:55 | Updated at 2026-08-08 20:06:52
23 minutes ago
Police are investigating the death of a woman whose body was discovered after what a neighbor described to The Post as hammering and cursing coming from her Brooklyn apartment.
Bensonhurst neighbors heard 30 minutes of mysterious and constant hammering in the early morning hours – before the 40-year-old woman was found dead of blunt force trauma in their building on 64th Street near 16th Avenue. on Aug. 1.
“There was music and people singing around 12:15 a.m. and it stops around 2 a.m.,” said a man who identified himself as A.L.
“And then the hammer starts,” he said. “I recorded it. It was 30 minutes of hammering and it started with a strong one. When the hammer finish, I heard ‘F–k you!’”
After that, there was eerie silence, the neighbor said.
The woman, identified by family as Erika Miranda-Tlacua, was found shortly before 4 a.m., cops said.
EMS pronounced her dead on the scene, and NYPD detectives were seen going in and out of the house carrying evidence bags in the hours that followed.
There were no arrests as of Thursday and no suspect description, police said.
Her cousin Gris Aguirre started a GoFundMe account for Miranda-Tlacua, she told The Post in a text.
“With broken hearts, we ask for your support today during one of the most difficult times of our lives,” the Spanish-language post said.
“Our beloved cousin was the victim of an act of violence that has left us devastated. Her passing was sudden and painful, and now we face the daunting task of raising the necessary funds to cover the expenses and bring her body home so we can give her the dignified farewell she deserves.”
The effort has raised $305 so far, and the money will be used fly her body back to her native San Juan Tejaluca, a small village in the central Mexican state of Puebla.
Aguirre, who lives in Red Bank, N.J., was planning to go to Brooklyn Monday because there hadn’t been an arrest in the case. She didn’t comment any further.
A woman who lives next door, who also asked to remain anonymous, said the news was disturbing.
“This news has left me a bit shaken — just imagine, a dead person,” she said. “I think they said they found the apartment empty, with only the deceased woman there. Just imagine — leaving someone like that all alone in the apartment.”
A UPS driver who identified himself as Ronald said he was “shocked” when he learned what happened at the two-story building.
“I was driving and saw the police car,” he said. “I didn’t know what exactly was going on, but when I went to my IG that’s when I found the post and I was like, ‘What! I was there earlier. What’s going on?’ Then I saw that there was a woman found dead in her apartment.”
A man who lives nearby and asked to remain anonymous said the neighborhood had become more transient in recent years: “It used to be that you knew your neighbors back in the day but now it’s a lot of turnover.”
