The August death of an 11-month-old Bronx girl was ruled a homicide after investigators determined she drowned in a bathtub, authorities and sources said Friday.
Little Jazeli Mirabal was unconscious and unresponsive when the NYPD responded to a 911 call at her family’s apartment on West Farms Road near Boone Avenue in Crotona Park East on August 14 around 7:40 p.m., police said.
She was taken to Lincoln Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
The city Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Friday that Jazeli’s death was a homicide — with law enforcement sources adding that she was found in a bathtub.
Both of Jazeli’s parents had been investigated by the city’s Children’s Services Administration, sources said at the time.
Neighbors said in August that the baby was “purple” and was lying on the floor just inside the front door of the apartment when her mother ran to her for help.
“I heard screaming. I was the first to go out. She knocked on the door,” a neighbor recalled. “She called for help. She said, ‘Help, my baby is dying.’”
Another neighbor on the same floor of the building said little Jazeli lived with her mother and two older sisters, but her father did not live there and was not at home when she died.
The child’s mother had a volatile relationship with her boyfriend, who stopped visiting after one of their frequent fights turned physical last year, neighbors added.
Neither parent was charged Friday in connection with Jazeli’s death.
Jazeli is the fourth child in the city whose death was ruled a homicide this month.
Authorities have determined that 4-month-old Ariel Gonzalez died of cocaine poisoning after he was found lifeless in his home on Eagle Avenue in Mott Haven on Aug. 10, officials said.
And one-month-old Staten Island boy Joseph Heben Jr., who died July 20, was found to have starved to death, officials said last week.
Joseph of Tottenville – died of “complications of severe malnutrition,” the city medical examiner’s office ruled.
No arrests have been made in either case.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona
