A malnourished 4-year-old boy died after he was found unconscious in his family’s Harlem apartment, police said Monday — and his mom has been charged in the heartbreaking case.
Sunday at 7:42 p.m., the boy’s mother called 911 from their home on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. near W. 145th St. to say that the victim was not awake. The boy was not responding, so medics took him to Harlem Hospital.
The kid died at the hospital about 10 hours later. He or she was also very cold.
The boy’s mother, Nytavia Ragsdale, who is 26 years old, was questioned by officers at the 32nd Precinct stationhouse of the NYPD on Monday. She has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
Someone in the police force who knew about the case said for sure that the boy, whose name was Jahmeik Modlin, was thin.
The person also said that little Jahmeik was not burned like it was said before, but instead had very bad eczema. The child did not have any known illnesses that could have led to his death, the person said.
An autopsy will be done by the city medical officer to find out how the boy died.
As NYPD officers knocked on neighbors’ doors Monday, yellow police tape was still on the door of the boy’s sixth-floor apartment.
Erica Speed, a 41-year-old neighbor, said that the mom has lived in the apartment with her four young children for three years, but Speed has “never seen not one of them.”
“We always want to know about the kids.” They were never hers. They never went to school that I saw. Speed said, “I never see her take them out.” “I have not seen the child in almost three years of living here.”
A 32-year-old woman who lives on the same floor as the boy also said she had never seen him.
Soto said, “I did not know she had a son.” “She is a lovely woman.” She smokes here [on the stairs of her apartment building] from time to time. You may see her smoking and talking on the phone at times.
She said she once heard Ragsdale fighting with a man, but other than that, she said, everything seemed fine.
“She was nice to my kids when she saw them.” He said, “She talked to me in the hall.” “That night I was here.” There was no sound. Do not scream. Nothing. It was very quiet.
Soto said Ragsdale was last seen outside the building around 3 p.m. on Saturday.
Speed said that over the years, Ragsdale has been offered clothes for her kids and other kinds of help, but the mom has never taken them.
“Everyone is asking the same thing: ‘Where are her kids?'” “No one knows,” she said. “She said she has four kids.” The eldest is 8 and the baby is 5. Where are these kids? … I did not think much of it because she is a nice person.
The neighbor said Ragsdale did not care about how she looked and almost never changed clothes. She also turned down Speed’s offers to give her clothes and boots.
“She pretty much wore the same thing for two years.” People around here called her “Same Fit” because she wore the same sweatpants for two years. “The same outfit, it is crazy,” Speed said.
Monday night, police led Ragsdale from Harlem’s 32nd precinct to a ready police car while he wore a dirty red sweatshirt. We did not hear anything from her.
Speed heard that the father of the children lives in the flat, but she said she had never seen him.
Speed told what happened that Ragsdale came and went all day on Sunday.
“She came and went all day.” Speed said, “I have no idea where she was going.” “All that running around. Why are you running around?”
A different neighbor, who did not want to be named, said she would sometimes hear the boy crying. The neighbor said that she sometimes heard people arguing, but she never heard the boy in the apartment at the same time.
She said, “Sometimes I would hear him.” “Not all the time.”
A group against violence called Street Corner Resources is run by Iesha Sekou. Their offices are across the street from the apartment building. One of her employees saw medics put the child into an ambulance, she said.
She said, “They just grabbed him quickly and threw him in the ambulance.”
“The scariest thing to me is that this kid died and not many people knew or had ever seen him.” That does not make sense.
“I know most of the little kids,” Sekou said. “Most of the people I have talked to since I got here this morning have never seen the child,” They saw the mom, but not the kid. That seems unlikely.
A spokesman for the Administration for Children’s Services said Monday that “the safety and well-being of New York City’s children is our top priority.” The event is being looked into by the NYPD.
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