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A Queens mother has been charged with murdering her own 1-year-old son.
She was arrested on Monday after the child was found unconscious and unresponsive in a bathroom, police officials and an internal police report said.
Highlights
- Nicole Boodhai, a 28-year-old Queens mother, was charged with taking the life of her 1-year-old son after he was found unconscious in a bathtub.
- Boodhai was found with slit wrists in an attempt to take her own life; police recovered a phone call where she allegedly admitted to her actions.
- The child, Charlie Ramraykha, had no visible trauma; pills were found nearby, but their type and relation to the tragedy remain unclear.
The 28-year-old mother, Nicole Boodhai, was charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child on Monday night.
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The police said officers responded to a 911 call around 1:30 p.m. Monday regarding an incident inside a home on 157th Street near 108th Avenue in the Jamaica neighborhood.
There, they found baby Charlie Ramraykha in a bathtub, unconscious and covered in blood, along with Boodhai, who had slit her wrists with a box cutter in a suicide attempt, the report said.
Emergency workers uncovered that the blood on the baby’s body was from his mother. It was unclear how the child was killed or the motive behind the murder.
Officers took Charlie to Jamaica Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Boodhai was hospitalized, according to the report.
Officers also said they have the recording of a phone call between Boodhai and the child’s father, in which she admitted to killing the boy.
The police arrived, rushed her to the hospital, and placed her under arrest, sources said.
The city medical examiner, who performed an autopsy, must do further testing before determining a cause and manner of his death, said spokeswoman Julie Bolcer.
Detectives had discovered pills in the bathroom that they believed the child had ingested. The report stated there were no visible signs of trauma to the boy’s body. It was not immediately clear what type of pills they were.
According to sources, the parents did not appear to be living together, and the child and his mother lived at different addresses.
Earlier this year, a 4-year-old boy passed away after being near fentanyl in a Brooklyn homeless shelter. His parents, Miriam Elkayam and Yitzchok Sklar, were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and abandonment of a child.
Only days later, on March 9, Kyng Davis, 3, died after his mother, Sunshyne Davis, and her boyfriend, Robert White, abandoned him at a hospital in Brooklyn.
According to data from CPGN, 1,990 children died due to abuse or neglect in 2024, roughly five children every day.
The boy was found next to his mother, who had slit her own wrists
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In the U.S. in 2023, an estimated 2,000 children died as a result of abuse or neglect, about 2.73 children per 100,000.
Further, American SPCC states that abuse by parents was predominant in almost 90% of child maltreatment cases, with more than 80% of fatalities involving at least one parent. Of the children who died in 2021, 41.6% suffered physical abuse.