A month-old infant who died on Staten Island perished from “complications of severe malnourishment,” and the manner of death is homicide, said the Office of Chief Medical Examiner Wednesday.
Little Joseph Heben Jr. was brought to Staten Island University Hospital unconscious and unresponsive on July 20 and subsequently died, police said.
Neighbors in Tottenville were shocked to hear that the baby had been the victim of homicide.
“A helpless child. An innocent child, like, really? Come on. It’s terrible,” said one man who works near the family’s home and did not share his name.
The man said the couple had a young daughter that was seemingly well cared for, but he hadn’t known about the newborn.
‘Whenever I saw her with her daughter… very nice, and the kid was always smiling,” he said. “I don’t know the inner workings of their family or whatever they’re doing in their abode, but they seem to be normal people.”
Joseph is the second child to die from malnutrition in the city during the past few months.
Jahmeik Modlin, a 4-year-old Harlem boy, weighed just 19 pounds when he died Oct. 13 after falling unconscious in his family’s apartment.
Prosecutors said the apartment where the boy lived with his rail-thin siblings, ages 5, 6 and 7, was stocked with food — but all the cabinets were secured with zip ties and the refrigerator was turned toward a wall so its doors could not easily be opened.
The children’s parents, Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, and Laron Modlin, 25, were indicted Wednesday on a slew of charges, including murder, assault, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child.
There have been no arrests in Joseph’s death.