I THREW AIDEN TO THE FLOOR
Bronx dad admits killing tot: cops
Christian Rodriguez appears Wednesday in Bronx court, where prosecutors said he confessed to fatally injuring his month-old son, Aiden.
A demented Bronx dad, just 38 days after holding his newborn son for the first time, hurled the infant face-first into their apartment floor in a fatal fit of frustration, authorities said Wednesday.
Court papers detailed the heartbreaking final moments of tiny Aiden Rodriguez’s painfully brief life once his dad Christian returned home with the boy shortly after 10 p.m. on Monday night. The father, who pleaded guilty to injuring his 3-month daughter in 2015, was expected to face homicide charges after providing cops with a blow by blow account of the killing.
The elder Rodriguez, who flashed a creepy smile Tuesday as he left the 40th Precinct, had earlier told cops he flew into a rage after he “accidentally bashed Aiden’s head against the door” while trying to fold up the child’s stroller.
The five-week-old child, wrapped in a hospital blanket brought home after his Feb. 9 birth, “wouldn’t stop crying,” his dad told cops. “I got angry and threw Aiden to the floor face-first. I got frustrated and threw him to the ground.”
The innocent victim hit the floor with such force that he suffered multiple skull fractures, with his brain actually shifting 3mm inside his head. Doctors reported bruising and bone fractures as well. Aiden ate his last meal just 30 minutes before his father’s fatal outburst, according to court papers.
Earlier, the accused killer told cops, the baby was acting “fussy” at his greatgrandmother’s house just a few buildings away from their Mott Haven home. Aiden fell asleep in his stroller, with Rodriguez accidentally banging the boy’s head into the door while trying to get the stroller inside their bedroom.
“I heard a pop,” the accused killer recounted. “I calmed the baby down and then I called his mother … to let her know that the baby hit his head.”
Within seconds, Rodriguez confessed, he was flinging the child to his death against the apartment floor.
A sullen Rodriguez, 24, stood quietly in Bronx Criminal Court as prosecutors said they planned to update the charges against him. The defendant was originally charged with assault and reckless assault on his doomed son.
Rodriguez “stands before you having admitted to throwing his 38-day-old son to the ground,” said Assistant District Attorney Astrid Borgstedt at court.
The defendant was jailed on $250,000 bail. The dead child’s 5-yearold brother was removed from their home to live with her maternal grandmother, sources told the Daily News.
In the prior abuse incident, Rodriguez told cops a similar story about what happened to his daughter: “I was holding the baby and I was getting frustrated and I dropped her.”
According to court papers, police were summoned to an unidentified Bronx hospital to find the little girl with bruising around her face and nose. Both incidents occurred inside the same Bronx apartment. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in the 2015 abuse case, authorities said.
The suspect’s Facebook page presented the image of a doting dad, with photos of Rodriguez rubbing his pregnant wife’s stomach followed by two pictures of the adorable little Aiden — one in his beaming dad’s arms.
The infant arrived at Lincoln Hospital “without a pulse and not breathing” on Monday night, according to court documents. Both parents were brought into the Bronx precinct, where the mom was released around noon and the father held for additional questioning.
Last year, a drug-addled Bronx mom was arrested for repeatedly slamming her 5-month-old son’s head against the wall of their apartment. Little Raymond Porfil suffered similar head injuries to those that killed Aiden, officials said.
The Administration for Children’s Services reported no prior contact with the Rodriguez and his family, although an investigation was now underway.
Late Wednesday, the city’s medical examiner confirmed Aiden’s death as a homicide and said the cause of death was “abusive head trauma.”
Aiden’s great-grandmother, Maritiza Quinones, 58, who lives near the infant’s Bronx home, told The News late Wednesday, “We just can’t believe it.”
“Aiden was a happy, smiling baby,” she said. “He was just starting to babble. It’s too sad. We have broken hearts.”
She said her granddaughter, Damaris, is “not doing well. All she does is cry. She can’t speak. She just breaks down and cries.”
At times succumbing to emotion, Quinones said of Rodriguez, “I hope he gets at least 100 years. He murdered the baby . ... We welcomed him into our family, and he killed Aiden.”