Detectives in Harlem have arrested and charged the mother of a 4-year-old boy found dead in her home on Sunday night, authorities said.
According to police sources, officers from the 32nd Precinct responded to a 911 call of an unconscious child inside the sixth-floor home on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 144th Street at around 7:42 p.m. on Oct. 13.
Once the officers were inside the residence, they found 4-year-old Jahmeik Modlin unresponsive and unconscious, with several marks on his body that some news outlets reported to be burn marks. However, law enforcement sources stated that the marks were in fact eczema across his chest.
He was also underweight when discovered, which some sources believe contributed to his demise.
EMS rushed Modlin to Harlem Hospital where he was pronounced dead later that night. The tot’s body was transferred to the Medical Examiner’s office for an autopsy to determine the official cause of death.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation report that officers took the child’s mother, 26-year-old Nytavia Ragsdale into custody for questioning. On Monday evening, nearly 24 hours later, she was officially charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
Detectives escorted Ragsdale out of the 32nd Precinct in cuffs just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 14. She kept her hooded head down and refused to answer reporters’ questions regarding the crimes.
Missing children found
At the time of the grim discovery, authorities were also searching for three other children said to live at the same location, but who were not there when police arrived. Cops later reported the children had been located and are currently with another family member.
The incident shocked neighbors, all of whom amNewYork Metro spoke with said they were not even aware she even had children living there.
Forty-one-year-old Erica Speed, who resides on the second floor, said that she saw first responders rush by her door Sunday night with the child and said the boy appeared to be malnourished.
“I was watching last night when they brought the baby out,” Speed recalled the following afternoon. “I couldn’t believe that he was a four-year-old. I thought it was a little baby, that’s how small he was. He looked malnourished.”
Speed said the child’s mother would often greet her and appeared to be an unassuming person who moved in about three years prior. In all that time she said she never saw or heard her children.
“I never saw her kids. She lived here almost three years, I never saw her kids,” Speed said.
At around noon Monday, the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit entered the location, heavily armored and carrying shields, but they left without anyone in custody.
