The Harlem apartment where a 4-year-old boy was allegedly starved to death by his parents was stocked with food — but the refrigerator door was turned to the wall and the cabinets were padlocked, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Authorities said little Jahmeik Modlin weighed only 19 pounds at the time of his death, even as the apartment was packed with nutritious fare.
His three young siblings, ages 5, 6 and 7, were suffering from malnutrition, too, officials said.
“There was a refrigerator. It had food in it,” said Heather Buchanan, an assistant Manhattan district attorney. “However, the refrigerator was turned to the wall, so it was not accessible by any of the children unless it was turned around. All cabinets that had food in them had child-safety locks on them.”
Buchanan served up the shocking revelation at a court arraignment for the boy’s father, Laron Modlin, 25. Prosecutors said Modlin, 25, was a bad dad who, along with his wife, the boy’s mother, allowed the malnourished child to waste away and die.
A day earlier, the tot’s mom, Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, was jailed for failing to feed the child.
The formal charges against Modlin were presented in Manhattan Criminal Court days after little Jahmeik was found unconscious Sunday night malnourished and suffering from hypothermia in their apartment on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. near W. 145th St.
Medics found the boy unresponsive and rushed him to Harlem Hospital.
Ragsdale, 26, has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child, authorities said Monday.
Authorities said the couple’s three other children are currently hospitalized and under the care of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, officials said.
“At autopsy, the child weighed only 19 pounds,” ADA Buchanan said. “On the growth chart for children, this child does not even appear within the growth percentiles. He is indeed zero percentile compared to children his age. The child had almost no fat in his body, especially in his stomach and his buttocks.”
Buchanan said the boy’s hair was thinning, a distinct sign of malnutrition.
“The child also had hair on his face, which only comes for a prolonged period of dehydration and malnutrition,” she added.
Front page of the New York Daily News for Oct. 17, 2024: Mom faces judge in death of malnourished son, and court papers reveal he was just 19 lbs. at 4 years old. Nytavia Ragsdale is charged in the death of her son Jahmeik Modlin.
Officials said the boy had been starved for years.
Ragsdale has said that she did the primary cooking and shopping and fed the kids as much as they needed.
But according to a criminal complaint, little Jahmeik was so food deprived that he would eat his own vomit. Authorities said the boy’s 19-pound frame was just skin and bones at the time of his death.
Ragsdale, though, told police she believed Jahmeik weighed 100 pounds and that he must have lost weight recently due to an illness. She said that for months, the child had been vomiting all of his food and then eating it, the criminal complaint read.
Ragsdale also said she only fed Jahmeik small portions at a time because he couldn’t keep food down and had diarrhea a few times a week, that she has never gotten the children vaccinated and does not take them to the doctor unless it is an emergency, according to court papers.