Uncle ‘threw infant niece down three-story rubbish chute’
A man allegedly dumped his one-year-old niece down a trash chute on the third floor of the family’s New York City apartment building.
Aaron Henderson, 39, is accused of dropping the toddler in the chute of a Staten Island building when her father was in the bathroom just before 3.15pm on Monday, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.
The father reportedly asked where his daughter was when he got out of the restroom, and that was when his brother told him what he had done.
Both her father and mother ran to the first floor of the building and heard their daughter crying from inside the chute, the sources said.
The parents broke the door open and rescued the toddler from the chute. She miraculously sustained only scratches to her face, head and body, said police.
Her parents took her to Richmond University Medical Center to be treated. She was listed in stable condition.
The dad said that he had never before seen his brother do anything like that before, sources said. The family said Henderson is autistic, and he was taken to a hospital for psychological evaluation.
Henderson did not have a criminal record or any past incidents with the New York Police Department.
He has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child, assault and unlawful imprisonment.
Henderson was arraigned in Richmond County Criminal Court on Wednesday and a judge ordered him to be held until he has a psychiatric exam.
The home at 195 Steuben Street is in the Park Hill neighborhood in the northeastern part of Staten Island. The building appeared to have more than a half dozen floors.
Henderson was busted a year-and-a-half after an infant’s body was discovered in a box in a trash bin outside of an apartment in Hollywood, Florida.
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