They would allegedly leave him unattended for hours at a time.
A mother and her ex-boyfriend have now been charged in the death of her 2-year-old after he died of suffocation while alone in a room in New York in August.
Patricia A. Giddings, 21, and her ex-boyfriend Brandon Bushey, 24, are now both charged with criminally negligent homicide after police said they were both responsible for Ellyah Elvidge on the night that he died.
The pair reportedly told police they found Ellyah unresponsive with his head caught in a notch cut in a sheet of plywood that allegedly served as a baby “gate” for the room he was in.
Investigators said that the room the 2-year-old was found in was in a “deplorable state” and called it a “holding pen” full of dirty diapers, animal feces, and broken toys all over the floor, according to reports.
Gidding reportedly told police she would leave the toddler unsupervised for five hours and the the ex-couple was allegedly watching television when Ellyah became stuck.
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Ellyah's biological father, Joshua Elvidge, expressed dismay upon learning of his late son's living conditions.
‘It's very sickening, and I just wish she could look me in the eyes because what they described, in my eyes, is that he was living like a pig. Like an animal,’ he told the station after the hearing,” he told WCAX.
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