The 5-year-old twins found dead in their Bronx apartment were violently ill hours before their mom discovered them foaming at the mouth and not breathing, a police official said Tuesday — as neighbors described the grieving woman as a doting caretaker to her two kids.
The mother, who has not been publicly identified, told police the children were both vomiting overnight around 3 a.m. Monday, and law enforcement sources said she may have given them Tylenol.
The mom said she left the twins alone briefly while she took a shower, and came out around 11:20 a.m. and found them in bed foaming at the mouth and not breathing, so she called 911, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters, adding that all signs as of Tuesday pointed to a tragic incident.
“All reports were that mom was well engaged with everything to do with these two children,” Kenny said at a press briefing.
“She was an active participant with their medical care, an active participant in their schooling,” he said. “Neighbors say she was doting, and they were a quiet, loving family. At this time until the ME (medical examiner) says something different, it just appears to be a medical tragedy.”
The twins — “special needs” children, according to Kenny — had been ailing and stayed home from school on Monday.
The boy had been sick for as long as two weeks with cold symptoms and was sent home from school last week. His sister had been suffering from an ear infection, and had been vomiting and “acting irrational,” the mother told police, with the behavior described as “biting and spitting at school,” Kenny said.
Law enforcement sources said the twins’ mother was so distressed over her children’s deaths that she had to be hospitalized at BronxCare Health System for observation on Monday.
The kids’ father – who was at work at the time – rushed home after learning what had happened, according to the sources.
“I’m not good,” the distraught dad told The Post on Tuesday. “I lost my two kids. Not good.”
The news came as a shock to neighbors, who said they only knew the grieving mom as a doting parent who barely let the kids out of her sight.
“She never let them walk by themselves. She always held their hands,” Lansana Damsoko, a longtime tenant of the Mount Hope apartment building, told The Post Tuesday.
“She waited in the [foyer] for the school bus to come and she held onto their hands and took them upstairs,” Damsoko added. “They were happy kids. Happy kids.”
Neighbors said the children’s dad worked as a home attendant and wasn’t typically seen around the building as much, but they noted it wasn’t uncommon to see him toting the kids along with their mom.
“I always see the mother with the children,” building tenant Nana Manso said. “I don’t think she has anything to do with it. I don’t think she’d do that. No, no, no. She loved them.”
Manso said after police arrived Monday, the mom was sitting on the steps hunched over.
“She was leaning on the wall with her hand on the side of her head. She looked worried and confused.”
Tenants in the building said the deaths struck everyone hard.
“It hurts, especially just before Christmas,” said Siriki Kante, a cabbie who has lived in the building since 1999.
“Everybody knew them, everybody loved them. They always said ‘hello’ to people,” Kante added. “The little boy, he’s a mommy’s boy. He’s always hanging on to her. It just breaks my heart.”
Additional reporting by Haley Brown and Amanda Woods
