Mother arrested after 2-year-old girl found dead in crib in Jersey City; neighbors called 911

JERSEY CITY (WABC) -- The mother of a 2-year-old girl found dead in New Jersey is under arrest.

The toddler was found inside a crib, at a home on the 400 block of Union Street in Jersey City.

On Wednesday, the girl's mother, Tracey Mitchell, 23, was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse.

The Jersey City Medical Examiner removed the little girl's body to determine the exact cause of death.

"She came knocking on my door and screaming the baby was dead and laid the baby on my bed and I called 911," said Ineasha Gleaton, a neighbor.

That's the horrific way she learned her neighbor's toddler had died.

"She was just, after she laid the baby down, she was running through my apartment screaming," Gleaton said.

Moments later, the mother ran out onto the street and tossed the little body in to another neighbor's arms.

"I had my dog on the leash; she threw the baby in to my arms. The baby was purple, body down, blue face up," another neighbor said.

As the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office begins the investigation, neighbors tell Eyewitness News the mother moved there a month and a half ago with her 4-year-old daughter, 2-year-daughter and the mother's sister.

Neighbors complain the police and ACS were called there Sunday and Monday, but the children were not removed and now it's too late for the toddler.

"They kicked down the door yesterday and left them children in her custody and today, that's it. The little girl is gone. Had they done their job, maybe she would have been alive. Feels like a bad dream," Gleaton said.

The older sibling and the mother's sister reportedly left the scene earlier.