An Astoria woman was discovered dead in Queens Village last month and her family is seeking information about a man who was allegedly seen wheeling her lifeless body on a dolly and then dumping her on the side of the road hours earlier – with a $35,000 reward being offered for the information.
Claire McKenna, 26, was found unconscious and unresponsive by police lying face down on the sidewalk at the intersection of 94th Avenue and 214th Street on Oct. 12 at around 9:30 a.m., according to the NYPD.
McKenna, of 28th Avenue in Astoria, was located near a bush and was partially clothed, the NYPD said. EMS pronounced her dead at the scene.
Police are still trying to piece together the circumstances surrounding McKenna’s demise. The Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to reveal a cause of death.
The victim’s family say police have CCTV footage of a man pushing her body on a dolly at 4:30 a.m. — about five hours before her remains were discovered – and they want to help the police catch the man. The footage has not been released publicly.
The man — who was wearing dark clothes and a mask — carried McKenna’s body on the dolly for five blocks before dumping it, according to the family’s attorney Michael Santangelo.
Santangelo also revealed that just over 24 hours earlier – at 3:11 a.m. on Oct. 11 — her father received a harrowing text message from Claire requesting “help” and that the battery on her cell phone was dying.
It is unclear what happened to McKenna in the hours after she sent the text message and what led to her untimely death.
McKenna’s family has put up a $35,000 reward for information that would lead to an arrest or a conviction of the man who allegedly discarded her body, according to Santangelo.
Santangelo said that while it remains unclear how McKenna died, it is a crime to unlawfully dispose of a body.
“Our goal is to get justice and find out who this guy is,” Santangelo told the Queens Post.
McKenna’s family members and Santangelo have been distributing posters around Queens Village to see whether residents can provide any clues as to what happened.
Her father, Derek, is originally from County Louth in the eastern part of Ireland while Claire was born in the U.S.
“This is very important to him, he is devastated,” Santangelo said. “She was a beautiful young girl.”
McKenna’s family says Claire was 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighed about 115 pounds.
She had red-colored hair. She was a singer and an aspiring actress, Santangelo said.
