No arrests made after newborn with umbilical cord attached thrown from Bronx window

ByEyewitness News WABC logo
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Neighborhood mourns baby thrown from window
Marcus Solis reporting live

MORRIS HEIGHTS, N.Y. (WABC) -- Police say they're questioning the mother of a newborn baby girl - her umbilical cord still attached - found dead outside a Bronx apartment building.

No arrests have been made.

According to the New York City Police Department, the infant was thrown out a seventh-floor apartment building window with the umbilical cord still attached just after 3:30 p.m. The building is on West 183rd Street near Loring Place North in Morris Heights.

The child's mother was located and taken to a hospital. The father was questioned and reportedly told police he was not aware that the the infant's mother was pregnant. He was released.

Neighbors looked on Monday night, silent and stunned as word of the chilling story spread. "Oh. It just broke my heart. Just broke my heart," a neighbor said.

"It's just something that's so ridiculous. I can't believe that someone would throw their own baby out the window," said D. Joshua Charleston, a neighbor.

As the doors to the Medical Examiner's van shut and drove away with the body of a newborn baby inside, police pieced together the details of the baby's death.

A secretary for the building's landlord, P.R.V. Realty Corp., said police were investigating and declined further comment. She said 50 people live in the building.

Fonzi Vucinaj's mother found the baby on the courtyard's cement floor. "To be honest, I've never seen something so unhuman like that; I don't know what those people were thinking about. I don't know what kind of mother would be to do that," Vucinaj said.

Fonzi's mother was in shock seeing all that. "She couldn't believe it, she was shocked, how would you react? You would react bad too, everyone would react the same thing," Vucinaj said.

"I know him for 10 years. He's a very good father, he comes from a good home, his parents are very good parents. It's not like he's in the street, he's mostly home with his son, he babysits his son while his wife works," said Christy Mercado, a neighbor.

Neighbors were heartbroken.

"It's crazy you know, a turn of events, a bad turn of events, We are all still wondering what's going on, we are all still questioning," a neighbor said.

"I'm hurting right now, I'm hurting right now, he's got to be sick in the mind, he's got to be sick, there's something wrong upstairs," another neighbor said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.