Squalor of Harlem home where boy, 4, was starved to death is revealed, as parents are indicted for murder
One bedroom was so filthy, the floor could not be seen through the amount of caked dirt and excrement on it, officials said. It was the only room with a lock — on the outside of the door.
The older, surviving children of two Harlem parents accused of starving their 4-year-old son Jah’Meik Modlin to death last month were so malnourished that they were unable to feed themselves, lacking the basic motor skills to even hold a knife or spoon, prosecutors said yesterday.
One bedroom in the fetid, three-bedroom apartment was so filthy that the floor could not be seen through the amount of caked dirt and excrement on it, officials said.
Feces covered a propped-up mattress and the walls of that bedroom, which was littered with a few pieces of broken furniture. The room was the apartment’s only one with a lock — on the outside of the door, allowing someone to be locked inside, according to court papers. None of the other rooms in the apartment even had doorknobs.
“The death of Jah’Meik Modlin, an innocent 4-year-old child, is a tragedy that has scarred this city,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who announced a criminal indictment against the child’s parents.
“That he died a slow and painful death, starving alongside his older siblings, somehow isolated in the heart of Harlem, is a stain on our collective conscience. Today, his parents are indicted for allegedly killing him through extreme physical neglect and persistent abuse with depraved indifference for his life.”
The parents, Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, and Laron Modlin, 25, were officially charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
The new indictment expanded on some of the abuse the children faced, and included some new details about their house of horrors.
Prosecutors said the kids went hungry in a home stocked with food, including fresh produce in the refrigerator and other fare in the the cabinets, the latter which were locked with zip ties. The refrigerator was turned toward the wall so its doors could not be easily opened, according to court documents.
Bragg said Jah’Meik and his older sisters, ages 5, 6 and 7, were not in school, and had not seen a doctor in more than two years.
The parents isolated the children and kept family and friends away, limiting interaction to phone calls and FaceTime chats.
When he died last month, officials said Jah’Meik weighed only around 19 pounds, less than some Thanksgiving turkeys. He suffered from malnutrition, dehydration and starvation and had almost no body fat, court records said.
According to prosecutors, Modlin called 911 shortly before 8 p.m. on Oct. 13 and told a dispatcher that Jah’Meik was unconscious and nonresponsive in their home on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. near W. 145th St.
The child was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he died the next morning.
Officials said Jah’Meik and his sisters arrived at the hospital with layers of dirt on their skin and feces matted in their hair.
Ragsdale’s relatives said she had reached out to social workers from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services but no one helped her, Jah’Meik or her three emaciated young daughters.
ACS had visited the home before to investigate concerns about malnutrition, but investigators did not substantiate the allegation, a law enforcement source said.
The child’s death sparked a preliminary review by the city’s Department of Investigation of ACS’s handling of the little boy’s case, which may lead to a full probe, a spokesperson told the Daily News.
Relatives said both parents had struggled with mental health issues.
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