Lex Valluzzi, Staff Writer
Yolanda Terrell was shocked and appalled to return from her vacation to see on the news that her daughter, 31-year-old Seikeya Jones, was discovered dead and hidden in a suitcase. Suffolk County Police were dispatched to a wooded area adjacent to an apartment building on a call reporting “suspicious activity.”
“I was taking a walk and I just, I smelled something,” said Taylor, a resident who spotted the body. “I saw a whole bunch of flies. I had looked over and I saw the suitcase. So, then I called it in, I was like I’d rather be safe than sorry. This is out of the ordinary. This is not normal.”
The police stated it was not immediately clear how long Jones had been dead or how long the suitcase was there. The victims’ wrists and ankles were bound together inside the suitcase. As of now the cause of death remains unknown.
The victim’s family revealed that Jones was struggling with homelessness and her mental health at the time of her disappearance back in August. Jones’s body was found just down the street from her childhood home.
On Sep. 6, a suspect was arrested by Suffolk County Police. 41-year-old Ronald Schroeder was apprehended at Penn Station in New York City. Schroeder is also a confirmed resident in the apartment building adjacent to where the body was found. Police stated that Schroeder gave a detailed admission of guilt during an interrogation and found in his possessions the common date rape drug “GHB”. Schroeder is being charged with concealment of a human corpse and on track to be in front of a judge on Sep.12.
The victim’s family appeared in multiple interviews since Jones’s body was discovered angrily demanding answers. Jones’s sister, Shasia Correnthi, stated, “that does not give anybody the right to put their hands on my sister and put her in a suitcase and stuff her inside the bushes like she was nothing.” Jones also leaves behind a four-year-old son. A vigil was held for Seikeya Jones shortly after the discovery at the location of her body. “Every time you looked at her, she had that big bright smile,” Terrell said during the vigil. “Something good is going to come out of this and when all is said and done, my daughter will not have been left in vain.”
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