A one-month-old baby boy starved to death on Staten Island over the summer. The months-old incident has been ruled a homicide, authorities announced this week.
The infant, identified as Joseph Heben Jr. of Main Street near Craig Avenue in Tottenville, died from “complications of severe malnutrition,” the city medical examiner's office announced Wednesday.
According to police, NYPD was dispatched to Staten Island University Hospital's south campus around 7 a.m. on July 20 after hospital staff reported that a baby had arrived unconscious and unresponsive.
He died from his injuries at the hospital.
Police have now launched a murder investigation, but as of Wednesday, no arrests had been made, authorities said.
It was also not immediately clear whether the child's parents were being questioned.
In a similar incident last month, Harlem parents Laron Modlin, 25, and Nitavia Ragsdale, 26, were arrested for starving their 4-year-old son, Germeik Modlin, to death, authorities said.
Ragsdale pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder at his arraignment Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
