It wasn't like Shantee "Mookie" Nakhid to return her phone calls or texts. So, her mother sent about 30 of them to her 24-year-old daughter after she had been missing for days, hoping that she'd respond to one of them -- only one.

But Nakhid never did respond. She didn't show up at all after she left her grandmother's place after midnight on xxxx.

Estalita Edwards, 41, said she texted scores of times, but she called her daughter more than that. “I called called her about 50 times,” Edwards told DNAinfo . “We were supposed to go shopping for her baby yesterday. I was Instagramming her, Snapchatting her. I called six different hospitals. They all said they didn’t have her, so I was happy. I figured if something violent happened, she’d be there.”

Edwards tried to report her daughter as a missing person, but authorities told her she had to wait 24 hours. So Edwards drove over to her daughter's residence in East Harlem. Still no answer. Then, as she was driving back, she spotted a police officer nearby.

“I stopped the car and asked him what the next step I’d have to take is,” Edwards told DNAinfo. “He asked me if I knew what she had on. I said she had on Uptowns and a floral-print peacoat and a black hat. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I have a picture of her on my phone.’ He looked at the picture and went around to the car to the other cop inside and told me to hold on. He said he was going to run her name in his phone.

“He asked me what she had on," she was quoted as saying. "Then he showed me a picture of my baby deceased. I knew it was her by her braids. She just put them in. They was red and black. She had a bruise on her face and her eye was pushed in. I knew it was my daughter. That was my baby.”

Police arrested a suspect, Nelson Quinones, who they say set Nakhid’s body on fire. Then he slit his throat and wrists -- but he didn't die in a failed suicide attempt.

Law enforcement said that the murder was macrabre in several ways: Quinones allegedly stuffed the body of Nakhid inside a garbage bag and dragged her several blocks about 6:30 a.m. in the morning, when few people where on the streets. She he left a bloody trail, police said.

One witness told DNAinfo they saw him. 

"He was bent over. He was dragging it by the feet," ninth-floor tenant Victor Ortiz, 52 told the website. "I thought it was garbage at first, but when I looked on the floor, there was blood. I saw the feet. She had black high heels,"

Moments later, Ortiz said he smelled smoke. A GoFundMe Account in Nakhid's behalf says this:

My baby Shantee "Mookie" Nakhid was murdered on May 9,2017. She was taken from me so suddenly and with such unspeakable brutalilty and violence. Something I could never imagine in my worst nightmare. She was a beloved mother, daughter, sister, niece, cousin, and friend to anyone she encountered. She was a beautiful soul. Of course unfortunately, because of these unforseen and unimaginable circumstaces we were notpreparedwith funeral and other expences related to the care of her ten month old son. I really don't want to put an amount on this.  I just want anyone who cares to contribute to give whatever they can or want to give.  Everything will be appreciated. Thank you."