The parents of a 5-year-old girl who died in Baltimore on Monday afternoon have been arrested on child abuse chargesauthorities announced on Tuesday.
Bernice Betty Byrd, 32, and Gerald Byrd, 34, were arrested late Monday night and charged with child abuse and neglect resulting in death, the Baltimore Police Department said in a news release.
According to charging documents obtained by local station WBAL, officers responded to a residence in the 2200 block of Aiken Street just after 12:30 a.m. for reports of an unresponsive child.
When they arrived at the scene, they found a 5-year-old girl whose body was “remarkable for its severely emaciated condition.”
The victim was identified as the Byrds’ daughter, Zona Byrd.
“The ribs were clearly visible and that was it obviously the victim was extremely malnourished,” the documents state, according to WMAR.
According to police, the parents said Zona and an older brother got into an argument on Friday. The dispute appeared to have been physical, but the parents did not seek medical help.
The Byrds also could not tell investigators when they had last fed their daughter.
Three other children were at home when police arrived. One of them, a 6-year-old boy, also appeared to be malnourished and needed medical attention.
An equally disturbing incident unfolded in Harlem just a day earlier. Nytavia Ragsdale, the mother of a 4-year-old boy who died after police found him unresponsive in the family’s apartment on W. 145th St., has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child, the NYPD said Monday. .
While an autopsy to determine how the boy died has yet to be completed, a police source with direct knowledge of the case told the Daily News that young Jahmeik Modlin was malnourished when police took him to Harlem Hospital.
The boy, who also suffered from hypothermia, died in hospital about 10 hours later.