A Westchester County woman tortured her lover so mercilessly that the victim lost 50 lbs. before she was strangled to death — with the crime scene so sickening the accused killer’s own cousin turned her in, officials said Wednesday.
Kenya Tilford, 41, is now on trial on first-degree murder charges in the stomach-turning death of 27-year-old Concetta Morton, who was allegedly brutalized for months before she was killed in September 2023 and left to decompose for days, prosecutors said.
Tilford allegedly tried to enlist help to get rid of the body but even her own kin wouldn’t bail her out.
“He was sick, horrified, and frankly terrified,” prosecutor Lana Hochheiser told jurors during opening statements at the trial in White Plains. The cousin checked Tilford into a motel — then he went to Tarrytown police.
The horrific case marks the first time the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office has lodged first-degree murder charges for a torture killing case, authorities said.
Hochheiser said Tilford, who is also charged with sexually assaulting two other women, abused Morton, who is developmentally disabled, for four months before the murder and then spent four days trying to get rid of the body, prosecutors said.
She even bought a chainsaw, offered one friend $1,000 — then reached out to her cousin, who ended the horror, officials said.
Police arrested Tilford at a motel in the village of Elmsford, where she was holed up on Sept. 15, 2023 — but it was what they found at her home in New Rochelle that shocked cops.
“They were overwhelmed with this horrific smell, and there was that plastic container where Concetta Morton’s body was,” said Hochheiser, the office’s homicide bureau chief. “Concetta was too badly decomposed that you couldn’t even see her face.
“Her legs were tied up with yellow rope,” the prosecutor said. “She was almost completely naked, wearing a little pair of shorts. Her skin was falling off her body, and there were plastic bags by her head and attacked to her back.”
Hochheiser said police also found a chainsaw in an open box next to the body, alongside a Tyrek suit, surgical gloves, bleach, masks and receipts from Home Depot and the Dollar Store.
Also at the scene were bloody footprints that tied Tilford to the scene, she said.
Hochheiser said Morton was an easy mark for the alleged killer — she suffered from “cognitive and physical development issues stemming from premature birth and narcotics in her system.
“She wanted to feel independent. She wanted to feel autonomous. She wanted to feel love,” the prosecutor said. “I submit the evidence is going to tell you that Concetta Morton’s disabilities, her delays, made her an easy target for this defendant.”
She said Tilford documented the abuse, including in a short video just days before the murder.
“You’re going to see Concetta sitting on a chair in this defendant’s home,” she told jurors. “Her lip is bloody. She has blood dripping down in front of her shirt. She’s disheveled. She’s out of it in an altered state, and there is a black garbage bag around her shoulders.
“There is a piece of skin missing on her neck.”
Westchester prosecutors maintain Morton’s death was part of a pattern.
Tilford is also charged with abusing another woman, identified only as “D,” in 2021, who was allegedly sexually molested, choked and threatened on several occasions.
Another allegedly victim, identified only as “M,” was choked, beaten and forced to pose for sexally explicit videos, also in 2021, according to prosecutors.
Tilford’s attorney, Rachel Filasto, urged jurors not to be swayed by the horrific details put forward by prosecutors and to focus on only facts and evidence.
“You promised to decide this case on the evidence and the evidence alone,” Filasto told the jury. “What we haven’t heard yet is any evidence. You have not heard any evidence yet implication Kenya TIlford.”
