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Like him, four other squatters in the apartments above a vacant Palisade Avenue storefront near the Fairview border were heavily intoxicated when they were found around noon Wednesday, Police Capt. Vincent Capano said.
Two had been sleeping next to the victim and weren’t aware that he’d died, Capano said.
All four had to be hospitalized, he said.
Six other squatters were detained until the Bergen County Medical Examiner, assisted by the Bergen County Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Identification, determined there was nothing suspicious about the victim’s death.
The victim, Gorge Adalberto Roca Camey, an undocumented immigrant from the Guatemalan town of San Martín Jilotepeque, was believed to be in his 40s, authorities said.
He was among a dozen or so squatters in the building’s three apartments, which have damage that includes a hole in the roof, Capano said.
Like him, Roca’s wife, Virginia, had suffered from severe alcoholism before dying three months ago. State child welfare authorities granted custody of their children to a Fairview caretaker.
A friend who hadn’t seen him since Saturday went to the building late Wednesday morning and found his body.
The friend found a Fairview police officer three blocks away, on Walker Street, and told him, Capano said.
Two of the four squatters had to be held up and supported before EMS could take them to Palisades General Medical Center in North Bergen, the captain said.
The building was immediately boarded up and red-tagged by the borough.
This comes after last week’s discovery of a 35-year-old homeless who’d frozen to death in a Palisades Park municipal parking garage.
SEE: Homeless Man Found Frozen To Death In Palisades Park Garage, Companion Hospitalized
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