Sealed apartment where body of NYC woman suffering from dementia found, fears ‘horror show’

A 92-year-old woman suffering from dementia and her nephew’s caregiver both suffered cruel, tragic ends — dying within feet of each other in their two-bedroom Upper West Side pad, with some neighbors fearing it would now be Has become a “scary show”.

Alice Osman spent her life traveling the world, before dementia made her a prisoner of her own mind, dying alone in her co-op, with the body of her haunted, struggling nephew Steven Osman in the next room. .

According to relatives, court documents and authorities, both Osmans were found dead inside his ground-floor home at 370 Riverside Dr. in June.

Osman, 92, graduated from Teachers College in 1959 and taught English to non-native speakers while working in Columbia University’s American language program in 1969, said the school and another nephew, Mark Osman.

“She was a world traveler,” Mark Osman told The Post. “I think that’s one of the reasons he never married because he loved traveling around the world. I have seen pictures of him riding a camel, visiting different continents. “He liked to go to places where English was not spoken.”

The elder Osman had no luck, Mark Osman said, using his two-bedroom, nearly 1,500-square-foot pad at 370 Riverside Dr. as his home base decades ago and occasionally hosting younger relatives .

Records show similar apartments now sell for $1 million or more.

She often flew solo, she said, to her condo in Lake Worth, Florida, just south of West Palm Beach.

Her family didn’t realize Alice was struggling until she started losing track of her longtime neighborhood and fell a year behind on her monthly maintenance fees, her nephew said.

Then Mark’s 63-year-old brother Steven, a former attorney who struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and was haunted by the death of his best friend – NYPD Officer John Perry, who died while saving lives in the terror of September 11, 2001, arrived. Were killed in the attempt. Attack – stepped into.

The pair lived together, but according to Mark and the doorman of the 16-storey building, problems arose with the management due to Steven’s unwanted interest in collecting and storing cans and bottles from the street inside the apartment.

Doorman Ermel Milori made the ill-fated discovery after arriving for his afternoon shift on June 28 and noticing a foul smell, he told The Post.

After checking the lobby, he entered Osman’s house and found Alice lying face down on the bed and her nephew – whom Milori had not seen in four days – lying dead in another room.

“First he died sleeping in his bed, and then my aunt, she lay down and fell asleep and never woke up again,” Mark Osman said.

The city medical examiner told The Post that Osman died of natural causes, including high blood pressure and atherosclerotic heart disease.

But almost five months after Usman’s tragic demise, the apartment is still sealed.

According to the lawsuit, there is a “Do Not Enter” sign on the door, and management has gone to the Manhattan Supreme Court asking a judge to compel the NYPD to grant them entry so they can clean, remove trash, and fumigate. Can.

“Since the bodies were removed, the plaintiffs have received numerous complaints from other residents about a strong odor coming from the apartment,” he said in court papers, adding that insects and cockroaches are believed to have infiltrated.

“The situation is just an unfortunate set of circumstances,” said Peter Livingston, an attorney representing 370 Riverside.

But a lawyer for Alice Osman insisted that 370 Riverside was wrong to demand access to the apartment – ​​and that he had left her family out of the bid to get in.

“He should not have had access to the apartment before we had access,” said lawyer Yoram Nachimovsky, who knew Steven Osman for decades. “It is completely unfair to keep us out of the case.”

The family has received their loved one’s remains within the last two weeks, she said, and only last month received the death certificate, ultimately allowing them to appoint Mark Osman in the Surrogate’s Court as executor of Alice and Steven’s estate. Approval has been received.

“Alice was an intellectual, a very lovely woman, very old school, very dignified,” Nachimowski said of the elder Osman in his better years, adding that Steven “was looking after her hand and foot. Probably their It was very unexpected that he was in my office a few days before he passed away.”

He refuted claims that the apartment was dirty or causing problems, noting that he had hired professional cleaners about a month before Alice and Steven’s deaths and was prepared to do so again.

“I think the fact that (370 Riverside) initiated the case without us entering the apartments is a sign that they have their own ax to grind,” Nachimowski said, noting that That Usman is current on rent and maintenance. “You want to go to his apartment without telling his lawyer? There is something very wrong with this.”

The NYPD cannot open the house without the authorization of the Surrogate Court or other authority, the department said in a statement.

“She was a nice lady,” one resident said of Alice Osman, declining to give her name.

Another resident said, “It’s probably a horror show inside.”

Another resident said, “This is a very difficult time for everyone.”