An elderly man was found dead inside a trunk in his Upper East Side apartment yesterday, several weeks after passing away, according to police. Police said they found the 87-year-old man’s body in his 11th-floor apartment after neighbors in his East 60th Street apartment building complained of an odor.

According to police, the man had a medical condition and likely died of natural causes. During questioning, his 67-year-old wife – who police said has a psychiatric history – said she had been planning to transport her husband’s body to Arizona in the trunk, which closed with a brass latch, police said.

Police did not identify the man as of last night, but residents yesterday identified their neighbors as James Fallon and his wife, Carole. According to police, the couple was last seen three weeks ago by personnel at their luxury apartment building, known as Plaza Towers, located between Park and Lexington avenues. Then, yesterday just before 8 a.m., police said they responded to a reported suspicious smell in the building.

A resident, Charles Bialo, 85, who has lived in the building since it opened in the early 1960s, saw his neighbor’s body wheeled out of the building on a gurney shortly thereafter. Mr. Bialo said he thought his neighbor had suffered a heart attack.

But resident Harvey Riezenman, 73, who lives on the floor above the Fallons’ apartment, recognized the smell immediately. He said another neighbor – who lived alone – had a heart attack and died in his apartment five or six years ago and was only detected some time later. When Mr. Riezenman smelled the odor around 9 a.m. yesterday, he said, “I thought something like this had happened.”

Another neighbor in the building, Don Lortie, who has known the Fallons for several years, said he hadn’t seen the couple recently. He described Mr. Fallon as a thin man who stood more than 6 feet tall, had gray hair and walked with a cane. Mr. Fallon and his wife seemed lucid the last time he saw them, Mr. Lortie recalled.

Yesterday, some neighbors were shocked to learn what had happened. “Oh my God,” said Peter Tsu, 28, a third-floor resident. Mr. Tsu said he detected a garbage-like odor in the elevator when he left his apartment around 2 p.m. yesterday, but thought it was coming from the basement. “It was very pungent, almost like one of those stink bombs kids play with,” he said. When Mr. Tsu returned home, he said, the smell had spread and was noticeable in hallways. Building personnel, who refused to speak to reporters, would not tell him what had happened.

According to residents, the co-op building – 34 stories high and 262 apartments large – has a storied history as one of the first luxury high-rise apartments on the Upper East Side. Located just one block away from Bloomingdale’s, it has housed figures like pianist John Browning and composer Jerry Herman, neighbors said.

As of last night, police said the man’s wife wasn’t in police custody and didn’t face criminal charges, but remained at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. According to police, the man’s autopsy is scheduled for today.