NEW YORK — A couple from New York City was charged on Wednesday with the murder of their 4-year-old son. Prosecutors say the boy and his brothers were deliberately starved in their Harlem apartment, where the parents kept fresh food for themselves in the fridge.
Ragsdale, 26, and Modlin, 24, are charged with many things, such as murder, manslaughter, assault, and four counts of risking the welfare of a child.
Ragsdale was first charged with second-degree murder. On Wednesday, he pleaded not guilty and is still being held without bail. Modlin will be put on trial next week.
Alvin Bragg, the district attorney for Manhattan, said that the couple should be charged with more serious crimes because they had shown “extreme physical neglect and persistent abuse with depraved indifference for his life.”
According to Bragg, the death of Jah’Meik Modlin, a four-year-old child who was not guilty, was a tragedy that left a scar on the city. “The fact that he died a slow and painful death while starving with his older siblings in the middle of Harlem is a stain on our collective conscience.”
Authorities say the couple stocked their home with fresh food but turned the fridge toward a wall and put zip ties on cabinets that held food so their kids couldn’t open them.
They also said that the kids had spent most of their lives hidden from other family and the public. The kids never went to school, hadn’t been to the doctor in years, and lived in a room that was full of poop.
Jah’Meik Modlin died at a hospital in Harlem after being found knocked out and not responding by cops at his home on October 13.
It was said that he weighed only 19 pounds and had almost no body fat when he died. The boy’s three other brothers, ages 5, 6, and 7, were also very malnourished and are still in the hospital.
The couple’s public defender’s office refused to say anything Thursday.
Source: NYC Parents Charged in Death of 4-Year-Old Boy Allegedly Starved to Death, Say Prosecutors
