River baby kin ID'd
Cops looking for missing pa
Cops on Tuesday identified the parents of the tragic infant boy who was found in the East River near the South Street Seaport — and police want to talk to the dad, who may have fled to Thailand, law-enforcement sources said.
The boy’s mom walked into a Manhattan station house late Monday and said she was worried because her estranged partner hadn’t returned their son earlier in the day after a scheduled weekend visit, sources said.
The 36-year-old Bronx woman told cops she feared the worst when she saw a news report about the approximately 8-month-old boy pulled from the water at about 4 p.m. Sunday, according to sources.
Her son was born in January, fit- ting the approximate age of the tragic child found in the water wearing only a diaper.
Investigators immediately went looking for the father at his Bronx home but he was gone.
What cops did find, however, was surveillance footage that first shows the man leaving his home with the baby — and then later shows him without the child, sources said.
Police believe the man may have already boarded a flight to Thai- land but are continuing their search here and staying in close touch with Thai authorities.
The United States and Thailand since 1984 have had a standing extradition treaty.
The names of the parents have not been released.
Meanwhile, officials are still working to determine exactly how the infant died and whether he was still alive when put in the water.
Horrified passers-by spotted the infant bobbing in the water near South and Dover streets just south of the Brooklyn Bridge.
A vacationing Oklahoma firefighter saw the infant, jumped into the water and pulled him onto an embankment, while onlookers frantically flagged down two NYPD cops in a patrol car.
One of the officers vaulted over a safety railing, picked up the child’s limp body and carried him to a pedestrian walkway.
There, both the Samaritan firefighter and the cop tried to revive the boy with CPR, but he was pronounced dead at NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital.
A police source said it appeared that the boy had not been in the water very long, and no parent or guardian came forward or could be identified at the scene, authorities said.