Mother charged with homicide: 2-year-old daughter dies in house fire as she performs at strip club
Mother charged with homicide: 2-year-old daughter dies in house fire as she performs at strip club
A mother has been charged with causing the death of her toddler daughter who was killed in a fire while home alone as the woman was performing at a strip club.
Leila Aquino, 20, was originally charged with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child for leaving two-year-old Kalenah Muldrow by herself in the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment.
The charges were upped to criminally negligent homicide by a Brooklyn grand jury on Tuesday.
The child’s body was found under her bed, where she had apparently crawled after the fire started on February 23.
Firefighters were not aware that the girl had been in the apartment until her distraught mother returned from her pole dancing gig at the Cityscapes Gentleman’s Club in Queens, holding a box that contained $980 in one-dollar bills, the New York Post reported.
By 9:30am, when Aquino returned and notified firefighters that her baby was in the apartment, the fire had already been extinguished for two hours.
‘Where’s my baby? I just want to find my baby,’ Aquino wailed, according to a neighbor who spoke to the Post.
After lying to cops that she hired a babysitter for the evening, Aquino was later forced to admit she left her daughter home alone.
It was suspected the fire started because a portable heater had been left on in the apartment.
Aquino was also charged with reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.
