An East Harlem man was charged Monday night with the gruesome murder of a woman whose body was found last week stuffed in a suitcase and left on the street.
Cops arrested Hassan Malik, 55, who lives on Pleasant Ave., just a few blocks from where the suitcase was found, police said.
Malik, a military veteran, was brought into the 23rd Precinct stationhouse for questioning after cops got a tip, sources said, and he confessed to the murder.
The bloodied remains of Betty Williams, 28, of Harlem, were dumped on E. 114th St. in East Harlem, near the famed Rao's restaurant, on Dec. 22.
Williams, who was strangled, did brief stints on Rikers Island for 12 different arrests since 2007, half of them drug-related.
Her body was discovered after a passerby found the suitcase minutes after it was dumped - and was terrified when a leg popped out after she opened it.
Cops released a video shortly after the body was found showing a man abandoning the suitcase about midnight.
Malik's neighbors said he was the man in that video. They said he bragged about bringing women to hotels and robbing them of their credit cards.
"He had a lot of girls," said one neighbor, who declined to give his name. "He could talk. Sometimes it's not the looks. He's a people person."
Neighbors said that police told them they found Malik's fingerprints on the suitcase. Police removed many of his possessions from his apartment Saturday, neighbors said.
Police had released a second video last week showing a man smiling and buying groceries at a nearby supermarket. That man was located and questioned by cops. They now believe he had nothing to do with the killing.
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