New York: A newborn baby was killed when his mother tossed him from a fourth-floor window of their New York City apartment building and he landed on courtyard pavement 40 feet below, a prosecutor said on Sunday in announcing her arrest on a murder charge.
Rashida Chowdhury, 21, was awaiting arraignment a day after 3-week-old Rizwan Ahmad was found dead in a onesie on the barren courtyard of the building in the borough of Queens.
“This is a truly horrific and disturbing case,” Queens chief prosecutor Richard Brown said. “The alleged actions of the defendant are totally incomprehensible.”
Medical examiners ruled the baby’s death a homicide, saying he died of blunt impact injuries and had suffered skull fractures and lacerations to his brain, liver and spleen. Neighbour Mazol Ilyayeva told reporters she heard something fall around 4 a.m. Friday and then saw the child’s lifeless, bloody body in the courtyard. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream,” she said. “I couldn’t even look. ... It’s horrible.” She said the parents had seemed stricken as they stood in the courtyard afterward.
