By Madina Toure
A colleague of Elmhurst resident Qing Qing Kiemde, whose disemboweled body was found in Kissena Park in Flushing Sunday said she appeared troubled not long before her murder.
At about 2:52 p.m., police responded to a call of an unconscious individual inside Kissena Park in the area of Colden Street and Laburnum Avenue, according to the police.
When they arrived, officers found Kiemde, 28, who was fully clothed, unconscious and unresponsive with slash wounds to the neck and stomach, police said. EMS responded and the woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident was ruled a homicide, officials said.
Mimi Liu, an employee at 88 Bakery & Cafe at 82-79 Broadway in Elmhurst where Kiemde worked, described Liu as “nice” and a hard, diligent worker who “does everything.”
About a week before Kiemde’s death, Liu noticed that something was bothering her, but Kiemde did not open up about it.
Kiemde seemed like she was not focused, Liu said.
“I was asking her if she was OK and she said she’s OK,” she said.
She and her husband, Felicien Kiemde, with whom she had been living in the Bronx, divorced last year, according to The New York Times.
A 109th officer said there were no suspects in the case at this point.
A man who lives in the same building as Kiemde’s father said he thought she used to live there. The father lives in the basement floor of the building in the vicinity of 78th Street and 45th Avenue . The father was not at his home Wednesday morning.
Julie Bolcer, spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office, said the death was a homicide and the cause was incised wounds on Kiemde’s neck and stab wounds on her torso.
No arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon and the investigation was ongoing, according to a police spokesman.
It was not known what Kiemde was doing in Kissena Park, which is several miles away from where she was living and far from any direct transportation route. A homeless man found her body along a dirt path in a heavily wooded and unlit area.
Some residents in the Elmhurst area said they were not aware of the murder.
“I didn’t know of it at all,” a young man who lives in the area said.
Other residents knew about the slaying but did not know that she lived in their neighborhood.
“I’d heard about the murder but I did not know that she lived there,” one woman said.
An older man who used to play soccer with his friends in Kissena Park for about 15 years said many people were talking about Kiemde’s death.
He said he was shocked because he frequently walks on 45th Avenue with his dogs and said he wished he knew more about her.
“Everybody’s talking about the woman found in Kissena Park,” he said. “That was a shame. We used to play in Kissena.”
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
