Bronx couple arrested in killing of infant daughter dumped in woods near Yankee Stadium
The Bronx father of a 3-month-old girl whose body was found discarded in a trash-strewn thatch of woods near Yankee Stadium was arrested Monday, according to police — the mother arrested for hiding the body, too.
Damion Comager, 23, was cuffed at 8 p.m. on charges including murder, manslaughter and concealment of a human corpse, cops said.
Mom Ivana Paolozzi, 20, was also arrested Monday for concealment of a human corpse and obstructing governmental administration, according to police.
Little Genevieve Comager’s grandfather asked police to perform a wellness check on the baby girl around 8 p.m. Sunday after he grew suspicious following a phone call with his son, the infant’s father, according to law enforcement sources.
Throughout the conversation with his son, the grandfather noted the absence of the babbling and infant wails he expected to hear from his granddaughter in the background, cops said.
When police arrived at the family’s resident, University Family Residence, a transitional housing shelter on University Ave. near W. 165th St., they quickly realized the infant was not with her 23-year-old father and 20-year-old mother.
After some questioning, a family member broke down and took the police to a wooded area strewn with trash including a broken toilet off W. 161st St. near the Major Deegan Expressway.
Cops found the baby dead in the garbage-filled woods about three blocks from Yankee Stadium.
Police cuffed Damion Comager after he told investigators that he slapped and shook his daugher when she cried as a way of silencing her, according to law enforcement sources.
It was not immediately clear if the baby was left in the woods to die or if she somehow died at a shelter and her body was later discarded in the woods, a police source said.
The family did not have a history of abuse with the Administration of Children’s Services before Sunday, and the agency will join police in investigating the girl’s death, according to a spokeswoman.
“As soon as this family came to our attention after this tragic matter arose, we launched an immediate investigation with the NYPD,” said Marisa Kaufman.
One neighbor characterized Genevieve’s mother and father as quiet, but unremarkable, and not the type of parents who seemed capable of callously discarding their lifeless daughter’s body in the trash.
“The parents seemed like any other father and mother, but they were distant,” said Gilbert Velez, 62, who worked as the super at a building across the street from the shelter where the family lived. “I never imagined ... they discarded the baby like a dog.”
Pathologists were unable to determine the child’s cause of death following an autopsy Monday, and the medical examiner’s office is waiting on the results of additional tests before making its final determination, according to a spokeswoman.
The grisly discovery was made two days after 6-year-old Jalayah Eason was found dead in her mother’s squalid apartment in NYCHA’s Forest Houses in the Bronx. The girl had bruises to both wrists and torso, cops said.
Her mother, Lynija Eason, was taken into custody and charged with endangering the welfare of her two surviving children, an 8-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, who had been abused in the past.
