A 3-Month-Old Baby Was Found Dead Near a Bronx Expressway

NEW YORK — Police arrested the father of a 3-month-old girl who was found dead in the woods near a Bronx highway on Sunday night.

The baby, whom the police identified as Genevieve Comager, was pronounced dead at the scene, a wooded, trash-strewn area near West 161st Street and the Major Deegan Expressway, police said.

Genevieve’s father, Damion Comager, 23, was arrested Monday night and charged with murder, manslaughter, concealment of a human corpse and obstructing governmental administration. Police said a woman, 20, whom a law enforcement official said was the mother, had also been in custody and was questioned about the death Monday.

A spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office said the cause of the baby’s death was under investigation on Monday evening.

The discovery was made after a relative who was concerned about the baby called the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, the law enforcement official said. Police found the baby’s body at about 8:24 p.m.

The baby’s last address was a shelter on University Avenue in the Bronx, according to police.

Zukhra Abdullayeva, 29, has been living in the shelter since December and did not know the family, but she said there had been no trouble in the shelter since she moved there. Abdullayeva, who is a mother herself, began crying when she learned of the baby’s death.

“It’s horrible,” she said.

It was the second time in a week that police in the Bronx had arrested a parent after the death of a child. On Sunday, police said the mother of a 6-year-old girl who died last week had been charged with endangering the welfare of her two surviving children.

Lynija Eason, 26, has not been charged in the death of 6-year-old Jalayah Eason, whom police found unresponsive in her Bronx apartment Friday with bruises on her wrists and torso. Eason’s two other children, an 8-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, were removed from the home, according to a law enforcement official.

Eason was charged with two counts of child endangerment, police said.

The medical examiner’s office was also still investigating the cause of Jalayah’s death Monday, said Julie Bolcer, a spokesperson for the office.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/nyregion/baby-death-bronx-arrest.html">The New York Times</a>.