By The Diary
16 Aug 2024, 01:40 AM EDT
Sharlene Santiago and her 10-year-old special needs son were found dead and in an advanced state of decomposition inside their Bronx public housing (NYCHA) apartment that had received visits from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).
The 39-year-old mother appears to have had a medical episode and died first, leaving no one to care for her son, Brian Santiago, who was confined to bed and may have died of starvation, the New York police said.
It’s unclear when they died but the family dog had access to enough food and was found alive when police responded about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday to a 911 call about a foul odor at the apartment in the Marble Hill Houses on Broadway near W. 228th St. An autopsy will determine how and when they died.
“They were knocking. Nobody… opened the door and they came in,” a neighbor told the Daily News He said he didn’t give his name. “After that I saw all the ambulances outside.” He added that he only saw the woman occasionally, but almost never saw his sick son. “Personally I don’t think I saw him… If I did, it was once and I forgot about it.”
ACS has received five complaints of neglect in connection with the boy’s care since 2013 when a drug test revealed marijuana in his system at birth, according to a law enforcement source.
The charges include a lack of supervision of her son and drug use by the mother, as well as several reports of “failure to thrive” alleging the child was not developing properly or gaining weight, according to the NYPD.
The child was removed from Santiago’s custody following the most recent complaint in May 2016, though the city later reinstated the guardianship. The mother had also previously been investigated in 2011 for inadequate care and drug use in relation to an unidentified daughter who was not currently in her mother’s custody.
In a similar incident, on Tuesday a man and a woman were found dead inside a house in Staten Island (NYC), in an apparent case of murder-suicide.
Domestic violence is a constant in New York City and surrounding areas, between relatives, roommates and partners, even with victims who are minors. Every day in NYC, an average of 747 incidents of domestic violence are reported – including assault, abuse, verbal abuse – and about 65 homicides annually.
In late July, a 54-year-old woman and her nephew were found stabbed to death and showing signs of decomposition in the apartment they shared in Brooklyn (NYC). The case was declared a double homicide, but no one has been arrested.