A TV reporter whose one-month-old son died after he was suffocated when his morbidly obese babysitter collapsed and died on top of him has spoken of his horror of discovering his dead baby. Continue reading after the jump.
Michael Baldwin II, who works at New York station News 12, said he had asked Teresa Coffey, 39, to look after his soon after he was called into work on Thursday.
But after he made several calls home from work and got no answer he raced back to his home in Greenlawn, Long Island and found both the baby Michael Baldwin III and Ms Coffey dead.
Mr Baldwin told Newsday: ‘This kid has been my life. And now, my boy is gone.’
Ms Coffey, who was 5’6″ and over 200 pounds, was found on top of the boy at around 9:30pm after Mr Baldwin rushed home fearing something was wrong.
The TV reported found Ms Coffey collapsed on the sofa, but he could not find his son.
‘I searched every room,’ Mr Baldwin recounted yesterday. ‘I was saying his name, “Michael, Michael”.’
When he failed to find his one-month-old son he returned to the living room where Ms Coffey was, ‘slumped on the couch, face down, her knees on the floor,’ he told the New York Post.
‘I just had this funny feeling she was on top of him.
‘I lifted her and he was underneath. He was lying on his back with his hands folded on his stomach.
‘He was blue… I just grabbed him and called his name – I knew he was dead.’
Ms Coffey was a friend of his wife. After their baby was released from hospital – after suffering from medical complications at birth – she offered to babysit.
Mr Baldwin said he got a message from the 39-year-old at work saying she needed to talk to him and could hear the baby in the background crying.
After calling back ‘dozens of times’ with no response, he returned home to find Ms Coffey collapsed.
‘The woman was described as extremely heavy,’ Detective Lieutenant Gerard Pelkofsky told the New York Post.
‘She was extremely large-breasted… Because of the amount of flesh, it could have caused the baby to suffocate.’
A bottle of prescription pills was found next to Ms Coffey, who was known to have medical problems.
While they are still trying to put together what happened, police do not believe carbon monoxide was a factor in their deaths.
An autopsy will determine the exact cause of deaths.
Mr Baldwin said he and his wife had only recently returned home with the newborn, the baby spent weeks in the hospital for a medical condition.
On August 18, Mr Baldwin tweeted that his son was finally coming home after 17 days.
‘Can’t wait!’ he wrote.
News 12 released a statement on Friday, saying: ‘Our thoughts and sympathies are with the Baldwin family during this difficult time.’
