JAMAICA, Queens (WABC) — A 15-month-old child has died and his mother is in police custody.
The incident happened inside a home on 157th Street in the Jamaica section of Queens on Monday, around 1:30 p.m.
“The first scream was a man, for sure, and it was a very loud, aggressive scream and the second one I heard sounded like a child, a child screaming in fear,” neighbor Fateemah Akter said.
Police responded to a 911 call of an assault.
Responding officers found 15-month-old Charlie Ramraykha unconscious and unresponsive, and his 28-year-old mother with slash wounds to her wrists.
EMS took the child and woman to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where the boy was pronounced dead.
The mother was listed in stable condition.
“A young child, it’s just unfathomable. I’m a single mom of three that just moved here in September and this is unfathomable,” another neighbor said.
Officials said the mother had what appeared to be self-inflicted slash wounds to her wrists.
“I think I’ve seen her. She’s usually pretty quiet. She’ll speak but other than that, I don’t know her personally,” a neighbor said.
A relative says the boy who died was her brother-in-law’s son and is not sure how the mother is doing.
Few details about what happened were released, but officials say the child’s mother is a suspect and is in custody.
Police said it’s not yet clear how the baby died.
The boy was covered in his mother’s blood, leading first responders to initially think he was slashed or stabbed.
But there was no blunt force trauma to his body, and the medical examiner will determine the cause of his death.
A next-door neighbor said he heard a baby crying earlier in the day.
“We just heard the crying, you know the noise. We just heard it in the morning,” Miah Mannan said.
Police recovered a blade that appeared to be a box cutter at the scene along with pills, officials said.
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