Wife found dead in Newark parking lot next to her mechanic, husband blames carbon monoxide

Tameka Hargrave thegrio.com
Tameka Hargrave's husband found her body in the garage on Monday, July 9, 2018. (Facebook)

A man found his wife and her mechanic dead inside a Newark parking garage and it could be from carbon monoxide poisoning, reports ABC7.

Kahali Johnson said he found the body of his wife, Tameka Hargrave, on the ground in the garage of their apartment building. There was an unidentified man near her, who authorities believe was her mechanic looking under the vehicle.

Johnson said he smelled a foul odor while in his apartment that resembled automobile exhaust. As a result, he went down to the garage and discovered the two victims on the ground.

“As I tried to step to open the last garage door, I see the mechanic, he’s laid out,” Johnson said. “She’s just a few feet away, she’s laid out. And pretty much I had to call 911, because at this time, with that level of emissions, I knew that they were gone.”

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Police are investigating the incident, but say it appears to be accidental. Some reports have indicated that Hargrave and the male victim were involved in a romantic tryst when her husband found them. The 56-year old male victim has yet to be publicly identified.

“Basically, she died because of carbon monoxide,” Johnson said of his 41-year old wife. “They do not have adequate alarm systems, because if there had been an alarm in that garage, people would have been alerted to the fact that it was going on.”

Hargrave leaves behind her husband, two children, and her parents. In an interview with CBS Local, Hargrave’s grieving mother said her last conversation with her daughter confirmed she was going to meet the mechanic to put an oil filter in her car.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” her mother said. “She was everything to me. She was my world.”

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Grandmother Who Couldn’t Breathe Dies in Newark

While it seems the woman and her mechanic may have breathed in vapors from carbon monoxide, which can easily kill you, a grandmother in the same city recently died because she couldn’t get the oxygen she depended on to breathe.  

Linda Daniels’ of Newark had a frail respiratory issue that required her to be tethered to an oxygen tank that was powered by electricity. Last Thursday the 68-year old died in her Newark home from congestive heart failure when the utility company cut her power because of an overdue bill, said the family.

“We put one ice pack here by her side and one on the other side. We were fanning her. It was so hot in here, she couldn’t breathe – it was unbearable,” said her daughter Desiree who was with her mom according to reports.

The family called paramedics who showed up with a portable oxygen tank. They also said they called the local power company, PSEG, numerous times pleading for them to turn the electric back on. Daniels’ oxygen needed to be plugged into an electrical outlet.

“One rep told me to stop calling, that there were too many tickets in the system,” said Desiree. “PSEG said ‘Oh, we’re on our way.’ Kept telling us that, but no one showed up.”

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The power company contends that they did not have record of a medical condition that required Daniels’ electricity to stay on.

“Because there was no response from the customer, the customer was shut off. They had not notified us of any medical circumstances in the home.” 

Daniels was laid on rest on Wednesday.

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