A man who was washing his car in Hartford watched helplessly as a 2-year-old boy tumbled head-first from a third-floor window last Saturday, leading police to find five children were left home alone in an apartment reportedly filled with dirt, cockroaches, feces and spoiled food, according to the incident report obtained by the Hartford Courant.
The boy, whose first name was Cornelius, died at a hospital on Monday afternoon after falling from the window onto a sidewalk outside of the building. The fall caused multiple skull fractures and bleeding in his brain, according to the Hartford Police Department and Wesley Spears, an attorney for the boy’s mother.
The toddler was home with his four older sisters at the time of the fall while his mother was reportedly driving for Uber, her attorney said. His oldest sister, age 12, told police that she was sick and sleeping when one of her sisters ran into her room and told her “papa” — their youngest sibling — had fallen out of the window while they were jumping on a bed, the report said.
First responders rushed to the scene after the man who was washing his car called 911. By the time they arrived, the eldest sister had already gone outside and carried her bleeding brother back upstairs into an apartment. Officers reported he was in an “abysmal” condition, according to the report.
One officer reported that he could smell a foul odor emanating from the apartment as he climbed the stairs of the building, the report said.
Another officer reported that after the boy was brought to the hospital, his sisters sat playing on the kitchen floor as investigators pieced together what had happened. The floor was reportedly so dirty that when they got off of the floor their clothes were stained with dirt, according to the report.
Another officer reported that the floor was caked with “a distinct layer of dirt and grime” with “large clumps of an unknown black substance” covering parts of it. He said his boots stuck to the floor as he walked on it, the report said.
Attorney: Boy, 2, dies after fall from window while children were home alone
The officer also reportedly saw multiple open trash bags spilling onto the floor and noted that there was no air conditioning and limited airflow in the apartment, causing the air in the home to be “heavy with an overwhelming foul odor,” police said in the report.
Throughout the apartment, officers reportedly found a bed filled with cockroaches, piles of clothes stained with feces in the bedroom and bowls and plates of food throughout the house that were left out so long they had begun to mold, the report said.
One officer called the home “abysmal and cluttered” and reported they saw lots of flies and bugs throughout the apartment and found “curdled liquid in the sinks and toilets,” according to the report. Another reported that the girls “appeared to be unkept and were not wearing clean clothes” and said that a strong smell of feces and urine was coming from the bedrooms where officers reportedly found piles of soiled clothing, according to the report.
Officers also reported dirt and food stains on mattresses, walls and other furniture, the report said.
The report said investigators made contact with the children’s mother, Tabitha Frank, who headed directly to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center to be with her son. Doctors reported that despite life-saving measures, the boy was brain dead and could not breathe on his own, police said.
Officers at the apartment called the Department of Children and Families Careline and a DCF worker responded to the home shortly after, according to police.
The DCF caseworker determined that the girls all required medical evaluations “due to the deplorable conditions of the apartment,” the report said, and they were all also brought to CCMC.
In their report, police said DCF responded to the home about one month ago, and “the condition of the apartment was not that abysmal.” DCF declined to say whether Frank had an open case with the department or whether she had previous involvement with DCF. The state Office of the Child Advocate said they were “still reviewing the circumstances around the incident.”
The Office of the Child Advocate this week released its Infant Toddler Fatality Report, co-authored by the office and a pediatrician from the Yale Emergency Department.
According to the report, 97 children younger than 3 years old died from non-natural causes in Connecticut between Jan. 1, 2019, and Aug. 8, 2022.
The report, which analyzes data on preventable deaths of infants and toddlers in Connecticut during a recent 3 1/2-year period, found that most infant and toddler deaths in the state are caused by unsafe sleep environments.
Frank was taken into custody after visiting her son at the hospital on Saturday and was charged with 10 counts of risk of injury to a minor. She was released on a $100,000 bond on Monday, court records show.
Spears claimed that his client, who has no criminal history on record in Connecticut, was struggling financially and had left her four younger children at home with her oldest child while she went out to work as an Uber driver.
“She’s not a bad person she’s just trying to support her kids and this is where it’s got her,” Spears said Monday, just hours after the toddler died at a hospital.
On Saturday, Frank told police that she had left the children alone to go to Walmart to buy food and diapers, the report said.
When police arrived at the apartment, a neighbor allegedly told an officer that “the third floor children are consistently left home alone without parents,” according to the report.
Frank’s four older children were taken into DCF custody on Saturday and had been placed with two family members, according to officials and Spears.
Hartford police and DCF are conducting an ongoing joint investigation.
