Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced that a 29-year-old Fresh Meadows woman has been charged with first-degree manslaughter and other charges in the strangulation death of her two-year-old son because he was screaming, crying and kicking.
The district attorney identified the defendant as Afriyie Gaspard, 29, of 155-14 Jewel Ave., in Fresh Meadows. She is presently awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on a complaint charging her with first- and second-degree manslaughter, first-degree assault, first-degree strangulation and endangering the welfare of a child. She faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Brown said that, according to the charges, on August 10, at approximately 3:30 p.m., while at home, the defendant’s two-year-old son, Izayah Hall, was screaming, crying and kicking, and the defendant put both of her hands around her son’s neck and squeezed his neck for approximately one minute until he stopped crying. The defendant allegedly said that her son then fell to the floor on his hands and knees, and began gasping. She then allegedly picked up the child, saw her son’s eyes wide open, and roughly put him down on his bed, where he continued to make gurgling sounds. Gaspard allegedly checked on her son 45 minutes later and his eyes were partially open and he was unresponsive.
The District Attorney further said that, according to the charges, Dr. Sean Kelly, of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, examined the body of the victim and found small, oval bruises on both sides of the neck: hemorrhaging within the ocular muscles of the eye; multiple areas of hemorrhage within the structures of the neck including the musculature; petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes and bruises to the back of the head.