A 38-year-old mentally ill woman and her 8-year-old autistic son mysteriously died in a Bronx home, leaving her 4-year-old traumatized daughter alone in the apartment with the two corpses for several days, police said Saturday.
The little girl was heard “screaming for days” inside the E. 231st St. home near White Plains Road in Wakefield before another daughter and the woman’s father made the grisly discovery at around 8:30 p.m. Friday, a police source with knowledge of the case said.
Cops searching the home found the 4-year-old girl cowering inside. EMS rushed her to Montefiore Medical Center for a medical evaluation.
It’s estimated that mother and son had been dead for at least three days before the bodies were found. The victims’ names were not immediately disclosed.
The woman’s father told police he had not heard from the 38-year-old victim for some time before he and his granddaughter — the victim’s teenage daughter — went over to the second-floor apartment to check on them.
The teenage daughter had not been living with her mother for a long while, cops were told.
The two victims had no apparent injuries, cops said. Autopsies have been slated to determine how they died.
Until the city medical examiner’s office releases its findings, their deaths are not being considered suspicious since both the mother and child were both physically and mentally disabled, a police source with knowledge of the case said.
Police sources said cops were first called to the apartment on Tuesday afternoon after they received an anonymous 911 call asking someone to check on them.
Cops knocked on the apartment door, but no one answered. Neighbors told the officers they hadn’t seen the family in a while, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
At the time, no one detected a foul odor or heard screams, the police source said.
In the days that followed, neighbors began to notice an odor, and they heard the little girl crying out, cops were told.
“We kept calling because there was a smell in the hallway,” one neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Daily News.
Building tenants described the mom as a quiet neighbor who was often seen taking in packages left at her door. Sometimes, she would be seen outside on the stoop with her youngest child in a stroller.
A package for the victim had been sitting outside the door for “two to three weeks,” according to a second neighbor.
“It’s just horrible,” the second neighbor said. I’ve been here five years and I never knew she had a son.”
Police sources said the woman occasionally used a wheelchair to get around, but neighbors never recalled her using one.
The mom, cops said, had a diagnosed mental illness and had an open case with the city’s Administration for Children’s Services involving the treatment of her teenage daughter. Details of the investigation were not immediately released.
Downstairs neighbor Sabrina Sterling used to cook for the mom and her children, but hadn’t seen them for more than a week.
“She was a great girl. Great mom. Great neighbor. Always polite, sweet,” Sterling, 50, said, remembering the deceased woman. “But you never know from the outside looking in.”
Word of their bizarre deaths have left residents rattled, Sterling said.
“It hits hard,” she said solemnly.
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