If she could do it all over again, Claire Nemorin would find a way to make her mother leave her Harlem home and move in with her on Long Island.
Her mother, Marie Nemorin, 74, had an independent streak and wasn’t ready to live under someone else’s roof. But she was also too trusting, which may have helped lead to her violent unsolved murder, the distraught daughter said.
Marie, a retired nursing assistant, was found dead on her apartment’s bathroom floor on Bradhurst Ave. near W. 149th St. at about 1:05 p.m. on Feb. 23, 2024, by two worried members of her church, officials said.
But only last week was her death determined to be a homicide after the city medical examiner made the finding in an autopsy that was initially inconclusive.
“She was living by herself,” the daughter said. “She was an independent person but very active.”
But she wasn’t careful enough, a neighbor said.
“She was a wonderful lady. She was like a grandmother to me,” said Larissa Liburd, 35, who lived in the building on Bradhurst Ave. near W. 149th St., where Nemorin lived and died. “But she always left her door open, and I always said to her, ‘Close your door, someone could come in and kill you.’”
Somebody eventually did.
Cops said there still have been no arrests but based on evidence from the medical examiner, Nemorin’s death was definitely a homicide.
Marie Nemorin, a retired nursing assistant, was found dead in her Harlem apartment building on Feb. 23, 2024. (Google)
After the initial autopsy, further testing was required before a final determination could be made on her cause of death.
The testing recently confirmed Nemorin died from blunt-force trauma, according to a spokesman for the medical examiner.
The victim’s family was in the dark for nearly a year on whether she was a victim of foul play.
“We have been waiting on an update, but we didn’t have enough information,” the victim’s daughter said. “We are just waiting and waiting. And now we are waiting for cops to get the person who did this.”
The daughter said she can’t conceive of anyone wanting to harm her mother.
“She never complained to me about someone wanting to hurt her,” she said.
“The cops told us that the apartment was a mess. It was upside down. I believe it was like someone was fighting with her.”
The neighbor said she never suspected foul play.
“I thought it was a heart attack,” Liburd said. “I didn’t realize her head was bashed in.”
She noted that Nemorin regularly left the door to her studio apartment ajar. “I don’t even think she had keys,” she said.
Claire said she tried to get her stubborn mother to move out of Harlem, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
“I wanted to do something for my mother to live closer to me,” she said. “But I know I couldn’t just grab her and force her to live with me.”
“I would always visit her to give money and give her things she needed,” she added. “I wanted her to live with me or other family and be close to family. She was far from family in Manhattan.”
Her mother was from Haiti and moved to New York in 1980.
“She was very religious,” the daughter said. “She used to preach on the streets in Haiti, giving out pamphlets to people passing by.”
Claire Nemorin said she hates the thought of her mother being alone when she died.
“I hope cops get this person. There have to be fingerprints, cameras, something,” she said. “I just want to know why? She was a defenseless person. She couldn’t fight. Why would anyone do this to her? She has a family. Just because someone lives by themselves doesn’t mean they don’t have a family.”
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