Bellevue residents shocked to learn body was hidden inside apartment

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Bellevue residents said they are shocked and disgusted after finding out they were living next to a dead person for hours.

A Bellevue apartment complex is where Metro Police said a man stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death and then put her body in his apartment closet.

One neighbor said she thought she heard something unusual. Neighbors at the apartment complex explained what they experienced.

“It was very alarming,” Champagne Robinson said.

Robinson watched dozens of Metro Police officers rush to her apartment complex in Bellevue. What happened next, she said, left her speechless.

“Then I saw the crime scene investigation van and that let me know right there that it is something serious,” Robinson said.

Metro Police said it started around 1 a.m. Sunday. During an argument, police said Dwayne Herelle Jr. stabbed his ex-girlfriend Irene Torres, 24, to death outside her house in Old Hickory. Police said he then brought her body back to his apartment on Bellevue Road.

“It was very startling,” Robinson said. “I saw that he had stabbed her and had her in his closet.”

The couple living under Herelle’s apartment said they heard what they thought was someone moving around furniture in the middle of the night. They later found out that Herelle was moving Torres’ body into his closet in a plastic bin.

“Whose to say he might not have gotten made and done something like that to a neighbor,” Robinson said. “It was his ex-girlfriend, but it is very terrifying that he was right across the street from me, like directly across the street.”

Police have arrested Herelle, 28, and charged him with criminal homicide.

Neighbors said they’re praying for Torres’ family.

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