Brooklyn baby dies at home three months after a judge returns her to her abusive parents, who lost custody when she was just three weeks old after she was found with broken ankles and a fractured skull
- Ella Vitalis was declared dead on September 20 from a brain haemorrhage
- She was only one and had been living with parents Lafayette Browne and Johnson Vitalis for three months
- The NYPD is now investigating the couple for the murder of the one-year-old child
- Judge Erik Pitchal allowed the girl to return to her parents from a foster home
A Brooklyn girl has died three months after being returned to the care of her abusive parents, a couple who lost custody of her after taking her to the hospital when she was three weeks old with broken ankles, a fractured skull and a stroke. a stroke.
Ella Vitalis, one, was pronounced dead at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn on September 20, five days after her parents Lafayette Browne, 29, and Johnson Vitalis, 28, called 911 claiming she had choked while her father was feeding her gave.
De Blasio-appointed Judge Erik Pitchal allowed the girl to return to her parents
She had blunt force trauma to her head, bruises and cuts on her forehead and swollen eyes.
Doctors also noticed what appeared to be bite marks, and it appeared she had a broken jaw.
Her mother claimed that this was all the result of her drinking ‘too much milk’. Details about her death and the horrific abuse she suffered before came to light today The New York Times.
Neither of her parents have been charged or arrested, but the NYPD confirmed to DailyMail.com that the child’s death is being investigated as a homicide.
The couple had only just regained custody of her and brought her home on June 15 after de Blasio-appointed judge Erik Pitchal signed off on them living together again.
They had been separated for a year as doctors learned of Ella’s serious injuries in August 2022 when she was just three weeks old. Her parents had taken her and her older brother, Liam, to the hospital after police were called to their apartment for a domestic disturbance.
She and Liam entered the foster care system, but their father was allowed to visit them.
In September, a month after the incident that separated them, Johnson left the baby – then just a month old – with a bloody mouth during a visit that was supposed to be supervised by his mother, Elsa.
It was so serious that a doctor ruled that a sharp object must have been used to cause the ‘moderate’ amount of blood loss.
In June this year, Judge Pitchal agreed to return the child to live with her parents, despite the child’s harrowing history of abuse.
Between June and September, when Ella died, the parents were unable to take her to a single check-in appointment.
Ella was on a ventilator for five days before she was pronounced dead.
She suffered a brain hemorrhage due to a skull fracture.
The girl was found unconscious in an apartment in this building in Brooklyn on September 15
Now there are growing questions about why Judge Pitchal thought the parents were fit to take her home.
Judge Pitchal, a Yale graduate who was appointed to the court in 2013.
The Brooklyn Family Court, where he works, did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
The New York City Administration of Child Services, which had requested that the children be placed in foster care, also did not respond.
One of their representatives told the Times that deciding where to place a child is not an “exact science.”
It remains unclear whether Liam, the other child, is still in the couple’s care.
A male relative declined to comment on the case when contacted by DailyMail.com on Tuesday.