Bed-Stuy Fire: Mom Arrested for Allegedly Leaving Baby Behind to Die

Photo via @NYCFireWire/Twitter

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — A third-story fire at 755 Monroe St. early Tuesday morning killed 2-year-old Kalenah Muldrow, a baby girl who had been left home alone by her mother, 20-year-old Leila Aquino, according to the NYPD.

Aquino has since been charged with reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.

The Tuesday-morning fire broke out on Monroe near Patchen Avenue at 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, and was declared under control a little over an hour later, at 7:55 a.m., an FDNY spokesman told Patch.

At that point, firefighters and NYPD officers — who were also on scene to “secure an adjacent location that was breached for purposes of fighting the fire,” police said — were still under the impression that the fire had resulted in no casualties.

However, around 9:45 p.m., an NYPD spokesman told Patch that Aquino approached officers and said her 2-year-old daughter had been inside 755 Monroe at the time of the fire, and was now missing.

Aquino ”had returned from elsewhere,” the police spokesman said.

The New York Post and New York Daily News both cited police sources saying Aquino initially claimed she had left her daughter with a caregiver while she went out drinking — but couldn’t correctly identify the caregiver.

According to the Post, Aquino later confessed to having worked overnight at a strip club.

Firefighters then searched the home’s top floor for the girl, where they found her unconscious and unresponsive, police said.

Aquino was interviewed by detectives all day. The charges against her were announced late Tuesday night.

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Witnesses told News 12 Brooklyn that they heard an explosion at the 755 Monroe around 6:30 a.m.

After the fire, neighbor Amari Smith told the TV news station that Aquino “came back looking for the baby, and she was really distraught. I really felt bad for her. She was like, ’Wheres my baby? Where’s my baby?’ And me and my mom were comforting her.”

A Facebook user who said the little girl was his cousin wrote in the News 12 comment section: “this was no accident i hope justice reveals it self soon i love you lil cuz man im in tears right now i am extremely [torn].”