A New York woman who drowned her 6-year-old daughter on Friday allegedly said she did so while baptizing her.
Madelyn Tavarez was found submerged in the bathtub of her family’s Brooklyn home. Sources told the New York Post that blood clots in Tavarez’s eyes suggest she fought her mother, Karla Espinal, 26, who is charged with killing her.
Sources said Espinal kept her daughter underwater for 20 minutes. According to prosecutors, Espinal claimed she was “baptizing” her daughter.
A neighbor told The New York Times that Friday, when Tavarez was found dead, was the second time cops were seen at the home.
Espinal is charged with felony assault and reckless endangerment. The charges could be upgraded depending on what an autopsy shows.
The slain girl’s father, reportedly told police he saw his daughter alive an hour earlier. The New York Times obtained texts the father sent to his boss on Friday, stating he would not be at work because his daughter was killed.
“I’m going crazy,” the father said in the messages which were in Spanish. “I’m here until God gives a miracle. I don’t know what to do.”
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