Month-old baby that died on Staten Island was starved to death: medical examiner

A month-old infant who died on Staten Island perished from “complications of severe malnourishment,” and the manner of death is homicide, said the Office of Chief Medical Examiner Wednesday.
Little Joseph Heben Jr. was brought to Staten Island University Hospital unconscious and unresponsive on July 20 and subsequently died, police said.
Neighbors of the parents, who the Daily News is not naming because they haven’t been charged, were stunned to hear that the baby had been determined to be the victim of a homicide.
“A helpless child. An innocent child, like, really? Come on. It’s terrible,” said one man who works near the family’s home and did not share his name.
The man said the couple had a young daughter that was seemingly well cared for, but he hadn’t known about the newborn.
“Here’s a woman that’s taking care of a child, for three years,” said the man.” Happy kid, saw them coming in and out of the apartment. This is news to me today that that baby had passed away, and now the ME says it was a homicide. That’s really a big surprise to me. I mean it’s a horrible, terrible situation.”
The worker recalled the last time he had seen the couple, after Joseph’s death, and noted they seemed distant, but he didn’t know why at the time.
“The last time I spoke to him was probably maybe in August possibly, and I said, ‘Hey how’s your daughter?’ The wife was there too. And they kind of didn’t answer me,” the man said.
“I didn’t even realize she had a baby and it died. They could have been depressed at that point. They were just not the same people that I’ve been talking to. Now it makes sense to me. But it’s certainly a lot of shock.”
A former co-worker of Joseph’s father, who did not share his name, said the baby’s dad had lost his job at an auto body shop when the company’s tow truck was impounded from a hospital parking lot after Joseph died.
“[Police] kept the car for a while… They said it was part of a crime, so we couldn’t get it back,” said the 40-year-old man. “We knew he went to the hospital for the baby, and we heard the baby passed away. And then obviously he took time off but we never let him come back.”
The co-worker said the baby’s father was a diligent worker but somewhat odd.
“He was very quiet, and peculiar,” he said. “He wore a hood and a mask, all the time. I don’t even remember the last time I saw his face, to tell you the truth. The kind that goes around your neck and covers the whole bottom of your face. Even when it was hot out, he got his hood on,” the former co-worker said.
“He said something about his teeth. He lost his teeth. He was embarrassed about his teeth.”
Joseph is the second child to die from malnutrition in the city during the past few months.
Jahmeik Modlin, a 4-year-old Harlem boy, weighed just 19 pounds when he died Oct. 13 after falling unconscious in his family’s apartment.
Prosecutors said the apartment where the boy lived with his rail-thin siblings, ages 5, 6 and 7, was stocked with food — but all the cabinets were secured with zip ties and the refrigerator was turned toward a wall so its doors could not easily be opened.
Jahmeik’s parents, Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, and Laron Modlin, 25, were indicted for murder Wednesday after initially being charged with manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child.
There have been no arrests in Joseph’s death.