Decaying bodies found in New York apartment after neighbour sees maggots

Ashley Ducille's badly decomposed body was discovered in a Bronx apartment - after the downstairs neighbor complained maggots were coming through her ceiling.

Two badly decomposed bodies were discovered inside a New York apartment after a neighbour noticed maggots falling from her ceiling.

Before police could even open the door to the apartment they were overwhelmed by a foul stench.

Inside, police found the decomposing bodies of a man and a woman, with a firearm laying next to the dead 40-year-old man.

Police encountered the gruesome scene at on the weekend during a wellness check sparked by the neighbour.

The woman, 29, was found dead on the couch and the man's body near her on the floor, police said.

According to sources, the woman had told neighbours she feared for her life.

"She used to tell me, 'Can you call me to see if I'm okay? Can you please call me? Can you please check up on me?'" a source said.

The source also said she would ask to routinely change the door locks out of fear for her boyfriend.

"Every two weeks, changing the lock. She used to get mad at her boyfriend and used to take the keys away from him."

Ashley Ducille's badly decomposed body was discovered in a Bronx apartment - after the downstairs neighbor complained maggots were coming through her ceiling.

But that did little to keep the boyfriend away — he would climb the fire escape to her window or stand outside her apartment door waiting for her to come or go.

"He would not move from there until she opened the door," he said. "I was seeing it in the [security] camera."

At this stage police are treating the deaths as a murder-suicide.

It is believed the bodies had been there for at least two weeks.

An autopsy will determine their causes of death.

Two recent domestic complaints reported to police — in August and September — were linked to the address where the bodies were found Saturday, sources said.

"The shock hasn't hit me. It's just crazy. It's just devastation," the dead woman's father told local media. "She was a good mother. She loved her children."