Newborn twins found dead outside a Bronx apartment block last year were beaten to death, police have revealed.
NYPD quadrupled the reward to $10,000 on Thursday as they appealed for more information to find the boys’ killer and their mother.
The infants, who were full term twins, were discovered dumped in the trash on November 9 behind a high-rise on College Avenue and East 171st street.
Reports that the children may have been strangled by an umbilical cord or died from a fall have been ruled out, Lt. William O’Toole told a press conference.
‘It appears to be either they were hit or purposeful blunt force trauma,’ the Bronx police commander said.
NYPD officers at the scene after the infants were discovered dumped in a paper bag on November 9 behind a high-rise on College Avenue and East 171st street
Officers attending the scene in November this year. Lt. William O’Toole told a press conference Thursday: ‘We would love to speak to the mother and help her, obviously, if she is in a desperate situation.’
The NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig announced the updated reward on Thursday
‘It’s kind of shocking to anybody to have two full-term newborn babies thrown in the garbage in the rear of the building,’ O’Toole added.
He said that the twins were discovered less than 12 hours after they were killed.
But O’Toole said the NYPD’s exhaustive investigations, including interviewing all residents in the neighboring buildings, as well as asking them for DNA samples, had turned up no leads.
Officers spent weeks going through hospital records for the city, as well as Winchester County and New Jersey, to check if the mother had sought medical attention after giving birth.
‘Either she gave birth to these babies and someone threw them in the garbage, either some domestic or relationship situation she was in,’ O’Toole said. ‘We would love to speak to the mother and help her, obviously, if she is in a desperate situation.’
Officers spoke to every resident in the 42 apartments inside the College Avenue building. None of them remembered seeing a pregnant woman around.
O’Toole said: ‘Someone who is physically pregnant with twins should really show.’
Turning over garbage in the area also revealed no evidence and there was no surveillance footage of a suspect.
‘We did a pretty exhausting investigation so far but there’s not much that goes on in this city that someone doesn’t know about,’ O’Toole said.
Police announced they were now offering $10,000, up from $2,500, after an autopsy determined that the case should be treated as homicide.
‘Everybody is upset about this,’ Ramon Sanchez, who has lived in the building for years, told the New York Daily News on Thursday. ‘Nobody wants to talk about it. Everyone is scared.’
The 67-year-old added: ‘I feel bad. It’s not supposed to happen, something like that.’
Officers attending the crime scene in November after the infants were discovered by the building superintendent
Police officers at the scene last year. They said their exhaustive investigation had so far turned up no leads as they made a renewed appeal to the public
Police cars outside the Bronx building on November 9 after the boys, who were full term twins, were found dumped in the trash
The superintendent of the building who found the children spoke to the New York Post at the time, telling the paper that he first mistook one of the boys for a doll.
‘I didn’t pay it any mind, because I thought it was a toy doll,’ the man, who gave his name as Johnny, said.
It was not until nearly six hours later that the superintendent went back outside and realized that it was a baby boy laying on the ground.
Johnny said that upon closer examination, he found the boy wrapped from the waist up in a blue pet training pad, which was wet with blood.
A short distance away, the super came upon the body of the twin, who had been placed inside a plastic bag.
First responders who were summoned to the scene rushed the children to Bronx Lebanon Hospital, where both were pronounced dead on arrival.
Police asked anyone with information to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or submit tips online at nypdcrimestoppers.com.
