NEW YORK – The death of a newborn whose body was found outside a Bronx apartment building has been ruled a homicide Wednesday.
The New York Medical Examiner's office says the baby girl was thrown from a fifth-floor apartment window and died from blunt impact injuries to her head and torso.
The autopsy performed today shows the infant suffered fractures and hemorrhage.
Police questioned a 14-year-old girl believed to be the child's mother. The teen was questioned by police at Jacobi Hospital, where the baby girl was pronounced dead on arrival, said police spokesman, Sgt. Carlos Nieves.
Police were dispatched to the Eastchester Gardens Apartments at 1166 Burke Avenue at about 8 a.m. Tuesday after a man called 911 and reported that someone had thrown a baby out the window. When officers arrived, the infant was lying unclothed on a patch of grass near the building with the umbilical cord still attached, police said.
The teen, whose name was not released, had not been charged. Police said she lived on the fifth floor of building.
Resident Maxine Thomas, 40, said she was sleeping before going to her afternoon job when her neighbor knocked on the door and told her police were at the building.
"She told me there was some baby thrown through a window," said Thomas, who has a 2-year-old daughter. "I don't know from which floor or who it was."
Thomas said police posted fliers in her building asking residents with information to come forward.