Four-year-old girl was discovered alive and trapped inside a New York apartment next to her deceased family.
The girl’s mom, Lisa Cotton, 38, and her 8-year-old brother, Nazir Millien, were dead for at least several days before Lisa’s older daughter went to check on them following a call from the landlord.
According to Lisa’s father, Hubert Cotton, his daughter suffered from asthma and had bipolar disorder. She likely died of a cardiac arrest. His grandson, who was born prematurely and had a feeding tube, probably died of starvation.
When Hubert received a call from Lisa’s landlord who questioned whether she had left the apartment, he sent Lisa’s older daughter to check up on her mom and siblings.
The sight was a devastating one – bugs were crawling over Nazir’s dead body.
The youngest sibling, 4-year-old Promise was by her mom’s bed, feeding herself with chocolate.
No one knows for sure how long the mother and her son had been dead, but neighbors complained of an odor that smelled like death for weeks.
After receiving an anonymous call, cops conducted a welfare check on the family Tuesday at the East 231st Street apartment in the Wakefield section. However, since they didn’t feel the odor or heard noises coming from the apartment, they left.
“They said they’d be back in a few days,” a neighbor said of the cops. “One of the social workers said she was trying to get a court order to have the door broken in.”