📷 GothamistDeath of Queens girl may be due to asphyxia, DA says
Francis Cabello, 32, was arrested and charged for murdering her 5-year-old daughter on Thursday.
A Queens mother accused of killing her 5-year-old daughter is being held without bail after an autopsy found the girl with injuries that suggest asphyxia, according to a criminal complaint.
Police arrested Francis Cabello, 32, Thursday evening and charged her with Fabiana Cabello's murder. Police said she called 911 on Wednesday and told them, “I killed my daughter.”
Francis Cabello didn’t enter a plea at her arraignment on Friday and her attorney declined to comment.
According to the criminal complaint, the medical examiner’s autopsy showed scrapes and broken blood vessels around her eyes, heart and lungs, signs that suggest asphyxia.
The mother and daughter lived in a two-story house on 110th Street in Richmond Hill where the child was found, according to the girl’s father, Kuldeep Singh, 36.
Police responded to the home just before 7 p.m. Wednesday following the 911 call from Cabello, police said. When they arrived, the young girl was unconscious and bleeding from her nose and mouth. She also had a bruise on her temple, police sources told Gothamist. Emergency services took the girl to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where she died, according to police.
Singh, an Uber driver, said that his work kept him from seeing his daughter as much as he wanted, but that she was happy when they were together. On Thursday, before the arrest, he said he had no reason to fear for the girl’s safety when she was with Cabello, his ex-girlfriend.
“She cared [for] her so much,” he said of Cabello.
Singh showed reporters texts in which he and Cabello worked out buying school supplies for their daughter’s first year of kindergarten.
The girl put in her own requests too, he said.
“She always called, ‘Papa, I need a pink bag, I need shoes, I need this, I need this,’” Singh said.
This story was updated with new information.
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