Police Make Haunting Discovery in N.Y. Closet

Though she lived alone in her Brooklyn apartment, Madelyn Carmichael was haunted by the sound of a crying baby. She complained frequently to the building superintendent, who insisted that no children lived nearby.

Now it turns out the complaints had a macabre overtone: Acting on a tip, police found the mummified body of a little girl, dead for 20 years, entombed in a trunk in Carmichael’s closet.

Police are convinced the child was Latanisha Carmichael, Madelyn Carmichael’s daughter.

Madelyn Carmichael, 60, was arrested Friday on suspicion of murder. She remained hospitalized after fainting when detectives found the body of the 3-year-old girl.

Police suspect the child was beaten to death.

Madelyn Carmichael has no criminal record. But when she faced accusations of child abuse in the 1980s, she sent two of her three children--including Latanisha’s twin, Andre--into foster care. It was Andre Carmichael, now 23, who tipped off police about the body.

Over the years, Madelyn Carmichael had told people that she had sent all of her children away because she was too poor to care for them.

Several weeks ago, Andre Carmichael sought to renew his relationship with his mother. According to family members, Madelyn Carmichael welcomed her son to her home but was disturbed by the sight of his 3-year-old daughter, who looks like Latanisha. She asked him never to bring the granddaughter back.

Andre also made contact with an aunt, who startled him by asking if he was in touch with his twin. He didn’t recall having one. That prompted him to confront his older sister, Sabrina.

The sister broke down, telling Andre that she thought his twin was dead and that the body was inside their mother’s apartment.

When he was young, Andre said, Latanisha “went through my mind a lot of times.” He says social workers and teachers ignored talk about a twin sister, “So I shut myself down.”

Welfare officials said they are investigating how the child’s disappearance went unnoticed and unreported. The twins’ father apparently hasn’t been heard from since their birth.

After Andre and his sister called police, members of the department’s Cold Case Squad knocked on the door of Madelyn Carmichael’s one-bedroom apartment Friday night with a search warrant. She fainted as they began opening a closet that had been bolted shut after being strewn with air fresheners.

Detectives found a trunk covered with cellophane. In the trunk was a tiny body wrapped in a baby blanket, plastic bags and yellowed newspaper dated Nov. 4, 1979.