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A couple is facing murder charges after they allegedly kept their children in a feces-covered apartment and starved one of them to death.
On Wednesday (November 6), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. confirmed that Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, and Laron Modlin, 25, were indicted in connection to the October 14 death of their four-year-old son Jah’Meik Modlin, per PEOPLE.
Jah’Meik suffered from malnutrition, dehydration, starvation, and had "almost no body fat," weighing in at roughly 19 pounds at the time of his death.
The parents, who are also accused of abusing their three other children, were charged with second-degree murder, first-degree assault, second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and endangering the welfare of a child.
According to court documents, Modlin called 911 on October 13 to report that Jah'Meik was unresponsive. The four-year-old boy was taken the hospital, where he died in the early morning hours of the following day.
Jah'Meik and his siblings were found with "layers of dirt on their skin and feces matted in their hair," according to authorities. Authories said Ragsdale and Modlin "actively starved their children for approximately two years while purchasing food for themselves on a daily basis."
The family's apartment had a "working refrigerator that contained fresh produce," but the door was facing the wall so the children couldn't reach it, according to authorities.
"Any cabinet containing food had a zip tie on the handle."
A bedroom in the apartment was "covered in feces," authorities said. "The floor could not be seen through the amount of dirt and excrement on the floor. The walls were smeared with feces to the approximate height of a child."
The children weren't enrolled in school and hadn't seen a doctor in over two years. Their parents had limited communication with friends and families so they could "hide" the kids' "deteriorating conditions."
Jah'Meik's siblings are still in the hospital for malnutrition.
“The death of Jah’Meik Modlin, an innocent four-year-old child, is a tragedy that has scarred this city. That he died a slow and painful death, starving alongside his older siblings, somehow isolated in the heart of Harlem, is a stain on our collective conscience," Bragg said in a statement.
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