MOM FACES SLAY RAPS
Bx. psych patient charged with killing her 5-year-old twins
The Bronx mom accused of killing her 5-year-old twins was put on suicide watch Friday as a judge ordered her held without bail for the double murder.
“Can I go home now?” a subdued Gloria Asamoah — dressed in a bright orange Department of Correction jacket and sporting a shaved head and dark circles under her eyes — quietly asked her attorney as she was arraigned on murder and manslaughter charges at Bronx Criminal Court.
Asamoah, 42, has been in and out of a psychiatric hospital since the Dec. 18 deaths of her children, Gianna and George Kantanka.
The mother was under the care of a doctor and not free to leave at any time as a Bronx grand jury indicted her, NYPD officials said.
During the brief arraignment, Judge Brenda Rivera approved of defense attorney Micheal Aspinall’s request that Asamoah receive continued psychiatric treatment and be put on suicide watch while she’s in DOC custody.
Asamoah became despondent after Gianna and George died in the apartment they lived in with their mother and father on E. 175th St. near Topping Ave. in Morris Heights, according to cops.
The woman called police around 11:20 a.m. when she found the children cold — hours after she claimed she spotted them foaming at the mouth and nose.
When medics arrived, the kids were dead. After numerous police interviews, it was initially believed Gianna and George died of illness.
An autopsy was conducted immediately after their deaths but needed further study. Three months later, the city medical examiner determined the twins were victims of homicide and were choked to death.
Their father is a health care worker and was at his job when the kids were killed. He will not be charged in their deaths, according to police.
Cops cuffed a New York City sanitation worker accused of leaving his young daughter alone in his car — which was then carted away by a tow truck, police said Friday.
Trent Washington allegedly left his 7-year-old daughter asleep in the back seat of his car when he pulled in front of a Chipotle Mexican Grill in a strip mall on Bartow Ave. in Co-op City around 5:30 p.m. Thursday and ran into the Bronx restaurant to buy some food, according to police.
He claimed he kept an eye on the car, but lost sight of it for a few minutes — enough time for a tow truck to come and take the car away.
Washington, 48, came out of the restaurant to find his car — and his daughter — gone.
The frantic father called 911 and reported the car stolen, but the police quickly ascertained that his vehicle had been towed away because it had been illegally parked, cops said.
The car’s windows were tinted, so the tow truck driver never saw the child sleeping in the back seat.
Cops charged Washington, who made $135,000 hauling trash for the city last year, with endangering the welfare of a child.
His arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending Friday.
An email to the Department of Sanitation for comment was not immediately returned.