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Police Charge Queens Mom With Strangling 2-Year-Old Son To Death
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 13, 2012
Modified Aug 13, 2012
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Al Mueller / Shutterstock
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 13, 2012
Modified Aug 13, 2012
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This morning police arrested a Queens woman and charged her with murder and manslaughter in connection with the death of her two-year-old son. Around 5 p.m. on Friday, police responded to a 911 call for an unconscious baby in an apartment at 155-14 Jewel Avenue in Forest Hills. Izayah Hall, age two, was found unconscious and unresponsive, and EMS transported the child to New York Hospital Queens, where he was pronounced DOA.
On Saturday, the Medical Examiner determined that this case was a Homicide, and today police arrested the boy's mother, 29-year-old Afriyie Gaspard. (Here's an extremely sad Facebook profile belonging to a Queens woman with the same name, but it's not yet clear that this is the same Afriyie Gaspard.) Police sources tell the Post that Gaspard told arriving officers she "had taken a nap and, when she woke up, Izayah was unresponsive in his crib." The Medical Examiner found marks on the boy’s neck.
Sources also tell the Post that Gaspard, a mother of six, was arrested in 2007 for endangering the welfare one of her children after her young daughter was found wandering alone at the nearby intersection of 71st Avenue and Kissena Boulevard. Today her five other children were placed in foster care.
Tagged
HOMICIDE
infanticide
queens
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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