Police arrest Anya Johnston, 24, for killing her 70-year-old neighbor; Susan Trott was found with her throat slit in their luxury Manhattan apartment complex a week ago
Woman, 24, is arrested for killing her 70-year-old neighbor who was found with her throat slit in their luxury Manhattan apt
Police said Anya Johnston was burglarizing her elderly neighbors apt when they started fighting
Retired ad industry veteran Susan Trott was found with her throat slit inside her bedroom by police during a welfare check on Oct 21
Police announced they arrested Anya Johnston on Wednesday – she faces charges of murder and burglary for killing 70-year-old Trott
Cops suspected a neighbor may have been behind the killing and Johnston lives in the unit directly above Trott’s
Anya Johnston is currently hospitalized at Mount Siani St. Lukes to undergo psychiatric evaluation prior to being questioned
She faces She charges of murder and burglary and is currently hospitalized to undergo psychiatric evaluation prior to being questioned
Trott was an advertising copywriter who split her time between New York and London
Victim: Police announced they arrested Anya Johnston, 24, on Wednesday as the suspected killer of Upper West Side woman Susan Trott, 70, [photo] who was found with her throat slit in her luxury apartment on October 21
Police in New York have arrested a woman they believe slaughtered a 70-year-old Manhattan copywriter who was found dead in her apartment earlier this month.
Anya Johnston, 24, was arrested Wednesday on charges of murder and burglary for killing Susan Trott, 70, who lived in the unit just one floor below her in a luxury Upper West Side apartment building.
Police said Johnston was burglarizing the victim’s apartment when the two began fighting. She is currently hospitalized at Mount Siani St. Lukes and has to undergo psychiatric evaluation prior to being questioned, according to ABC.
Sources say Johnston has a history of mental illness and has been hospitalized at least twice. She was reported missing by her mother on Oct. 17 who told police her daughter was acting irrationally.
According to locals, Trott got into many spats with her neighbors who tried to boot her out of the co-op, complaining about her love for animals and how she rented out a vacant apartment next to hers.
Cops believe Trott and Johnston may have had arguments in the past, although it’s unclear what their conflicts were.
Susan Trott was found with her throat slashed inside her bedroom on the morning of Sunday October 21.
NYPD suspected a neighbor may have been behind the slaying as the apartment has a doorman and there was no sign of forced entry in the apartment. Cops began to search for a female neighbor at the luxury apartment located at West End Avenue near 95th Street. – Johnston lives in the unit directly above Trott’s.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said after Trott’s murder NYPD believed ‘all the pieces of that puzzle are within that building’. Authorities reported no signs of forced entry, no murder weapon at the scene, and the apartment was not ransacked.
Trott was a successful copy writer and major player in the advertising industry for decades, working for firms including BBDO, J Walter Thompson, McCann-Erickson, Satchi & Satchi and Y&R and for brands like Levi’s, Nickelodeon, Ambien, Virgin Atlantic, and Air Canada.
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The suspect Anya Johnston lives in the unit directly above Trott’s in the Upper West Side luxury apt [photo]. Authorities reported no signs of forced entry, no murder weapon at the scene, and the apartment was not ransacked. The building also has a doorman.
She was married twice but single at the time of her death and had no children according to her records. She split her time between London and New York and owned an apartment in Manhattan as well as a home upstate.
Trott’s friend said that she had gotten into altercations – at times physical – with neighbors over the past decade.
She was attacked her over her apartment and love of animals, her longtime business partner and friend Eric Boscia, who is based in London, said.
‘I said it would be someone in the building. I said if anything looks foul, it was someone in the building…the people that abused her most were her neighbors,’ he said.
Trott had told friends that her co-op board was trying to boot her out.
The first fight ensued when she purchased a vacant apartment next to her own and would have friends stay there. Some neighbors complained that she was illegally renting the apartment out, spurring the board’s anger.
‘She would say, “They’re my friends, they’re from Australia, they’re from Japan, they’re staying for like three to four weeks. [The board] were giving her issues with that,’ Boscia said.
Another fight ensured over her rescue dogs who were both near death.
Police remove evidence from Johnston 15th floor apt. She faces charges of murder and burglary and is currently hospitalized to undergo psychiatric evaluation prior to being questioned
‘She was taking them out in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. And when they couldn’t walk anymore because they were so sick, she would carry them,’ he said.
Yet neighbors complained she didn’t use leashes and that the dogs were aggressive.
Yet another fight was over how she carried a loaf of bread or a bag of birdseed around to feed pigeons on the corner of West End Avenue and in Riverside Park.
Residents complained that the birds attracted rats.
To others, she was just a kind local bird lady.
‘She was very prominent person, who in retirement was going around the neighborhood, feeding the birds and the squirrels,’ a local retiree named Stefan said.
‘She was just trying to do good in her later days. Whenever she was in my presence, she was very respectable. I’ve seen her do nothing but good,’ he added.
Despite the fights, she refused to move.
Boscia said residents were writing anonymous letters to the board about her and neighbors started harassing her. In one instance her clothes were strewn about the laundry room after she put them in the machine.
‘She had neighbors harassing her. I’ve witnessed it. They’d be outside yelling at her for things, for feeding the birds. They would say something to her about the dog, like, “Get your dog back!”‘ Boscia said.
‘And I think it got very serious this summer. A lot of times, she wouldn’t want to leave the apartment,’ he added.
Her death shocked the Upper West Side.
Police conducted a welfare check after a friend and colleague notified authorities after she failed to show up to work and hadn’t been heard from in days.
Once police entered the resident they found a trail of blood leading into the bedroom.
Upon arrival police observed an unconscious and unresponsive 70 year-old female with a laceration to her neck,’ an NYPD officer told DailyMail.com.
There was initially no suspect and police believed Trott may have been dead for 24 hours by the time her body was discovered.
Her last correspondence was four days before she went missing.
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