SCHENECTADY — City police arrested a man with a history of domestic violence on a murder charge Friday after they found the decomposing body of a missing Albany mother in the basement of his father’s garbage-strewn apartment on Stanley Street.

Richard R. Heinze Jr., 35, was arraigned on a second-degree murder charge in City Court early Friday morning. He is accused in the death of 30-year-old Mary Jeoney of Albany in late January.

City police allege Heinze strangled Jeoney in the basement of 841 Stanley St. and then concealed her body there while Albany police opened a missing persons case for the single mother.

“We believe the body was left there sometime around when she went missing,” said Schenectady Police Department spokesman Brian Killcullen. “We do not believe the body was moved [to] that location.”

Killcullen was unsure how the body was hidden but said the apartment was foul. City code enforcers declared the property uninhabitable because of a “severe roach infestation” and the volume of garbage in it.

Richard Heinze Sr. expressed both frustration and remorse while waiting to re-enter his first-floor apartment, where he’s lived for more than 20 years. He and a friend, Margaret VanWormer, had been living in the flat with Jeoney’s body concealed somewhere in his unheated basement.

“If I had known about it, I sure as hell would have turned his ass in,” he said.

The younger Heinze has a prior record of violence against women. In April 2006, he was accused of choking and punching his 44-year-old girlfriend over several hours while he was intoxicated. Heinze also “threatened to kill her and her whole family,” according to court documents.

Heinze was charged with misdemeanor unlawful imprisonment and third-degree assault. He later served 60 days in jail after reaching a plea agreement in the case, city court officials said.

Albany police investigators interviewed both the father and son this week, more than a month after Jeoney, the mother of a 7-year-old boy, was reported missing by her parents on Jan. 23. Albany Police Department spokesman James Miller said Jeoney was living with her parents and it was uncommon for her to leave for more than a day.

“There was no indication at that point anything had happened to her,” he said.

The younger Heinze’s name arose during the investigation and he agreed to be interviewed by Albany police on Thursday. Miller said investigators now allege he killed Jeoney.

Jeoney has a page on MySpace.com, where she lists a liking for “anything Japanese” and her son as “the best thing that has come into my life.” A man answering the phone at the home of Jeoney’s relatives in Albany declined to discuss the woman’s death.

An autopsy performed Friday determined Jeoney died from strangulation around the time she was reported missing. Killcullen said there were no other signs of injury on the body.

The elder Heinze said his son met Jeoney on a chat line and had been seeing her for about six weeks before she disappeared. He assumed the couple had broken off their relationship.

“The only time I went down [to the basement] was to put some water in the boiler,” he said. “He must have had her covered up pretty well.”

Heinze said his son, an unemployed roofer, had a volatile relationship with Jeoney, whom he described as meddlesome. Even though he indicated the couple frequently argued, he said he never suspected his son was capable of killing the woman.

“Anything like this is totally beyond my understanding,” Heinze said, choking back tears. “There’s no reason to do anything like this for any reason.”

Heinze said his son had been living with another girlfriend in Colonie for about four weeks. He said his son returned to the home Thursday and claimed to be looking for some mail in the basement room.

“He seemed very remorseful about something,” the father said.

Heinze was ordered held without bail and is scheduled to reappear in City Court on Thursday morning. Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said the case will go before a grand jury early next week.