Medical examiner rules Bronx 5-year-old twins’ deaths as homicides by smothering

Nearly three months after the NYPD said no criminality was suspected in the deaths of two 5-year-old twins in the Bronx, the city’s medical examiner has ruled their deaths homicides.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed in an email Wednesday that both children were determined to have been killed by smothering. The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the medical examiner’s update.

According to police, the siblings’ mother called 911 on the morning of Dec. 18 after finding the siblings, a boy and a girl, cold and not breathing in her bed where they usually slept in their apartment on E. 175th Street. EMS pronounced them dead later that morning, authorities said.

The next day, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the autopsy report had so far indicated that there was no strangulation or bruising to their bodies. He said the kids were reportedly both sick leading up to their deaths.

“Toxicology is obviously going to take some time, but as of right now, no indication of criminality,” Kenny said in December. “The apartment was stocked with food, stocked with baby clothes, stocked with the necessities you would need for a child.”

A search warrant of the apartment revealed no narcotics or paraphernalia, and the FDNY found no indication of carbon monoxide, Kenny said in December.