An exotic dancer accused of illegally keeping human body parts in her home was arrested Friday, two days after she skipped a court appearance, the Middlesex County prosecutor's office said.
Linda Kay was taken into custody with the help of the bail bondsman who had posted her $100,000 bail, the office said. No new court date has been set.
Messages left Friday for her lawyer, Donald DiGioia, were not immediately returned.
The prosecutor's office had no immediate comment on where Kay was found and where she was being held.
Kay, 31, of South Plainfield, was charged last week after police were called to her house on a report that a roommate, Sean McDonough, was suicidal. When police arrived, he was not there, but Kay was home. Officers who looked around the house found six human skulls and a severed human hand preserved in a jar of formaldehyde in her bedroom.
Friends have said she called the hand "Freddy."
She has been described as a "Goth" devotee. Se dances at the Hott 22 nude bar in Union under the stage name "Zilla."
Andrea Leipow, a former roommate, has said the hand was a gift from a medical student who liked Kay's dancing. Kay's mother told The Star-Ledger of Newark she believed the skulls were bought from a mail order catalog.
‘Lunatics’
The skulls-and-hand incident was not the first bizarre happening at the South Plainfield house. McDonough faces charges that he held guns and knives to Leipow's head and stomach, threatening to gut her.
Leipow, who said she lived with pair about two months, termed Kay and McDonough "lunatics."
"It's kind of a cult-like environment," the 25-year-old Leipow said. "I do not know what word to use to describe it."
On April 28, McDonough held her down on the floor for more than five hours, pointing a knife to her neck and an unloaded shotgun at her head, eventually pulling the trigger, according to court documents.
At one point, he threatened to sever her jugular vein and held a 6-inch switchblade to her neck and to her stomach, musing that perhaps "he should cut her open," according to court documents.
He is awaiting trial in state Superior Court on those charges, which include making terroristic threats and weapons offenses. There was no answer at the house he shares with Kay on Wednesday.
Kay was charged last week after someone called police and reported that McDonough was suicidal and threatening to kill himself with a hammer. When police arrived, he was not there, but Kay was home. Officers who looked around the house found the skulls and hand.
Her lawyer said earlier he didn't know why she skipped out on the court appearance. "I told the judge I was trying to locate her," DeGioia said Wednesday. "She looks forward to her day in court."
Seeking origins of skulls, hand
After the missed appearance, municipal court Judge John Leonard revoked Kay's $100,000 bail, issued an arrest warrant for failure to appear, and set a new $100,000 bail on the new charge.
"We're currently trying to determine who the skulls and hand belong to," Police Chief John Ferraro said. The body parts were taken to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office for examination and forensic testing.
Ferraro said police had been called to the house with the overgrown front yard weeds and a gargoyle-guarded door several times before on noise violations and other complaints.
