A tragic discovery was made in the Bronx Saturday after police responded to a domestic disturbance.
Initially, police responded to a domestic disturbance of a woman “acting irrationally.” She was take to an area hospital. Prior to departing for the hospital, a family friend told officers that her children were with their father.
Approximately thirty minutes later, the father, who was not at the apartment when police arrived, called police back to the scene after discovering his three-year-old and an eleven-month stabbed to death in a bathtub, hidden by a pile of clothing.
The young boys, identified by law enforcement sources as Deshawn Fleming, 3 and Octavius Canada, 11 months old, were found in the tub with “multiple stab wounds” to the neck and torso inside of a homeless shelter at 246 Echo Place in Mount Hope by their father just before 8 p.m., police said.
At 7:21 p.m., police and EMS workers responded to a 911 call that was most likely triggered by a carbon monoxide alarm in the third floor apartment, according to police and sources.
Police found the boys’ mother, identified by sources as Dimone Fleming, 22, naked and “acting irrationally” in the apartment, which was filled with noxious gas after she was lighting things on fire in the kitchen, police and sources said.
Officials turned off the water to the running bathtub and took the unidentified woman to St. Barnabas Hospital. They did not notice that the slain children were concealed under the pile of clothes in the tub, according to police.
“There wasn’t anything obvious to suggest there were dead kids in there,” a police source said. “There was no blood.”
Before she left for the hospital, a family friend told cops that the woman’s children were with their father, police said.
The man, who was on the fourth floor of the building when cops were first called, made the gruesome discovery about 35 minutes later, and his desperate calls for help prompted neighbors to call 911 a second time, at 7:57 p.m., officials said.
Fleming was considered a person of interest in the horrific double murder, police said. Charges had not been filed against her Sunday morning.
New York PD provided additional details.