MANHATTAN, NY – Chilling surveillance footage has revealed the final hours of 24-year-old Jaclyn Elmquist, a legal recruiter from Minnesota, before her body was found at the base of a garbage chute in a luxury Manhattan apartment building. Police confirmed Elmquist’s identity on Saturday. Elmquist disappeared after an office event, prompting a search by loved ones who covered her surrounding neighborhood with missing person posters.
Presently, authorities do not suspect foul play, indicating that Elmquist likely died due to falling down the trash chute. Footage shows the young woman stumbling along West 28th Street, Chelsea, around 11.45 p.m. on Thursday night before she arrived at the +art complex at 540 West 28th Street. Prior to her disappearance, Elmquist was reported entering a yellow taxi cab outside popular Catch Steakhouse in Manhattan.
An alarm was raised when Elmquist did not return to her Brooklyn home or arrive at work. Through tracking her phone, family members located her device at 184 11th Street until the signal was lost. Tragically, Elmquist’s body was found just blocks away at the luxury apartment building.
NYPD responded to a call about a potentially injured person at the complex around 2.40 p.m. An NYPD spokesperson stated on Saturday: “A 24-year-old woman was found unconscious and unresponsive in a garbage compactor at the base of a trash chute at 540 West 28th Street.”
First responders declared the woman to be dead at the scene. So far, investigations suggest that she likely died due to falling down the garbage chute. There is no criminal activity suspected in the case. The New York Post reported that Elmquist’s body showed signs of trauma, and a maintenance worker discovered the body while handling garbage.
The timing of when Elmquist ended up in the basement remains uncertain.
It should be noted that the +art building, containing 90 units with an average property price of nearly $1.5 million, is just a block away from the High Line Park. The specific cause and intricacies surrounding Elmquist’s tragic death have yet to be released.