Monique Exum loaded the suitcase on a dolly and wheeled it around the corner, she told the authorities. She put it behind an abandoned building in the Bronx where she used to live.

She placed a small handwritten sign on the suitcase:

Rest in Peace.

Then, she says, she walked away.

Last Sunday, three months later, someone opened up the suitcase, which sat behind 1309 Needham Avenue in Williamsbridge. It held the remains of Johnny Davis, a 73-year-old man who lived in Ms. Exum’s apartment on Fish Avenue and whom she had been caring for, the authorities said.

Ms. Exum, 36, has been charged with improper burial, a misdemeanor.

She told a detective that she disposed of Mr. Davis’s body herself after he died on May 31 rather than call the authorities because she was afraid she would get in trouble.

Her statement to the police fills in the blanks as follows:

I went into the room and he’s face down in the bed. His left hand is closed, his right arm is on the side of the bed. I knew he was dead. I think he had a seizure and died. I was afraid. I didn’t know what to do.

I called a family member and she hung up on me. She didn’t care. The next day around 12 o’clock, I called a friend and asked her what happens if someone dies in my apartment. She says if someone dies in your apartment you go to jail. So I get really afraid. I took him off the bed, put him on the floor, put him in a plastic bag, one on top of him, one on bottom. I took a suitcase out of the closet and put him in a suitcase. I went down to the corner store and borrowed a dolly. While taking him down the stairs, he’s bumping down the stairs and a neighbor on the first floor heard and asked me if I needed a hand. I said, ‘No, I don’t need no help.’ I take him to the rear of 1309 Needham Avenue because I used to live there and I know the house is abandoned. I took a board and wrote Rest in Peace and left it on top of the suitcase.

The boilerplate language on the charge against Ms. Exum, which was reported Wednesday by The Daily News, states that she “did willfully neglect or refuse to report a death” and “without written order from a medical examiner did willfully touch, remove or disturb the body of such person.”

The cause of Mr. Davis’s death remains under investigation, prosecutors said.