A Harlem man was found guilty Thursday of the horrific murder of his partner’s 10-year-old son and subjecting the little boy described by loved ones as wise beyond his years to a cruel litany of abuse in his short life.
The Manhattan Supreme Court jury found 37-year-old Ryan Cato guilty of second-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child for Ayden Wolfe’s March 6, 2021, killing at the St. Nicholas Houses on W. 131st St. near Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Little Ayden suffered immensely under Cato while attending school remotely for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, jurors heard during the trial. Cato was dating Ayden’s mother Aquisha Johnson, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide before the trial as part of a plea deal requiring her cooperation against him.
Medics responding to a 911 call by Johnson found the child grievously injured and soaking wet from an apparent effort to wake him and rushed him to Harlem Hospital, where he died hours later. His spleen, liver, and kidney were lacerated, he had bruising between his toes, and he also suffered a lacerated renal vein, according to court records. His cause of death was listed as “battered child syndrome.”
“Ryan Cato tortured 10-year-old Ayden Wolfe for months before beating him to death within an unimaginably horrific 24 hours. The evidence shown to the jury proved the utterly depraved nature of Ayden’s murder, including extensive internal and external injuries that no one, let alone a child, should suffer,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
During the trial, jurors viewed autopsy photos showing Ayden in a condition a prosecutor remarked looked like he’d been “hit by a train” and heard of how he had broken ribs in various stages of healing, suggesting he’d been repeatedly battered over an extended period. A doctor from the city Medical Examiner’s office said he’d been brutalized to such a point that a piece of his liver and the casing of his kidney began to come off inside his abdomen.
Johnson admitted on the stand that she sometimes participated in the abuse of her little boy, hitting him with a belt and forcing him to hold heavy weights as “discipline.” She described her boyfriend beating the child with the same force he would use when fighting a grown man.
The beatings leading to the boy’s death began a day before he perished, the jury heard. Cato’s defense sought to lay blame on Johnson, but prosecutors said she couldn’t have been the primary aggressor due to frantic calls she made before the 911 call. Ayden could be heard writhing in pain in the background of the disturbing calls, which had been recorded and played for the jury.
Darnell Wolfe with his son, Ayden.
Within 15 seconds of Johnson’s call to 911, Cato took the phone from her and began trying to craft an explanation of what had happened to the child, the jury heard. When medics arrived on the scene, in bodycam footage played during the trial, Cato was seen soaked in sweat and babbling about other children in the neighborhood, appearing to try to blame them.
In an interview in 2021, the boy’s father, Darnell Wolfe told the Daily News his son was an intelligent little boy, saying, “He had charisma. He just shined.” Wolfe could not immediately be reached for comment.
A relative of Johnson, who could not be reached Thursday, previously told The News that she was a teenage brain cancer survivor and that Ayden was her miracle baby after she’d been told she’d never have children. Police previously said that she had never been reported to child services.
“He had a vocabulary probably better than all of ours,” Johnson’s relative said of Ayden in the wake of his murder, calling him a “sweet little boy” who dreamed of being a professional gamer on YouTube.
“Being ahead in his class, he was very intelligent. Into reading, gaming, technology. He figured out the Wi-Fi. Something went wrong in my house and he was like, ‘I can fix it for you, cousin.’”
In a statement, Cato’s lawyer said he would appeal.
“The death of Ayden Wolfe is a tragedy, but a depraved indifference murder conviction for Mr. Cato is not justice,” Jessica Horani of New York County Defender Services said. “While we are disappointed in the verdict, we will continue to fight for our client and pursue his appellate rights in this case.”