Girl, 7, lost third of blood
Critically wounded; cops collar granny in stabbing frenzy
A 7-year-old girl stabbed more than a dozen times by her unhinged grandmother in the Bronx lost a third of her blood, the Daily News has learned.
The girl is in critical but stable condition and expected to survive, cops said.
The child’s horrified uncle woke up and found the girl unconscious and covered in blood on a bed inside their apartment on Clinton Ave. near E. 169th St. in Morrisania about 8:15 a.m. Tuesday, cops said.
He called police, who scooped up the child and rushed her to Lincoln Hospital in their own squad car, officials said.
The victim’s 4-year-old sister was also in the apartment but not harmed, a police source said.
The child’s paternal grandmother, 65-year-old Maritza Yauger, was found in the apartment. She was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital for a medical evaluation and charged with attempted murder, attempted manslaughter, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and other charges.
The knife she allegedly used to stab the child was recovered.
Doctors told investigators the child suffered more than a dozen stab wounds, including deep cuts to her trachea and left chest.
The knife perforated one of the child’s lungs and may have punctured her kidney, according to police sources. She also suffered internal bleeding near her heart and lost a third of her blood.
The child underwent surgery and was given a blood transfusion Tuesday, the source said.
The victim and her sister live with their parents in New Jersey but were staying at the grandmother’s apartment when the assault took place, police said.
Hairdresser Maria Castillo, 47, who has styled Yauger’s hair for years, said her client would often bring her granddaughter with her when she had an appointment. She’d get the little girl’s hair and nails done, Castillo recalled.
“When she brings the girl, I say, ‘Why you give her everything?’ ” Castillo said. “She says, ‘I have two sons. I no have daughter. I love my granddaughter. I give her everything.’ ”
Castillo and others in the salon were glued to a television tuned in to Telemundo, which was broadcasting Spanish-language updates on the tragic case. When the story came on one woman turned the volume up.
“It’s too much for me,” Castillo said. “I know the grandma and the baby. It’s too much.”
Castillo said Yauger most recently had an appointment on Monday and came without the girl.
She said Yauger had been more quiet than usual since her mother died.
“She looked different — the face,” Castillo said. “She didn’t smile too much. Before, she did.”
The city’s Administration of Children’s Services had never investigated the grandmother, nor her family, for abuse or neglect before this incident, the police source said.
A clerk in a store where Yauger buys her groceries said the customer seemed like a typical grandmother.
“She always come here,” said Stephanie
Hernandez, 35. “Like every Dominican woman she always cooks or something. She always brings something for us. I always see her, like, normal. I know that her mom passed away last year. Since then she wasn’t feeling good. That’s what people said. People that know her. She was like a regular grandma.”
Hernandez said she feels bad for the girl but also bad for the grandmother.
“I do feel sad for her and for the girl as well,” she said. “But for her because I know her for many years and she seems like normal.”
A worker at the store, Victor Ramirez, 54, said Yauger came to the store sometimes with gifts of food including homemade arepas. Sometimes he’d go to her home to change a lightbulb.
“She was a good person,” Ramirez said. “I know her many years. She was my friend. Excellent person. She used to bring me food. Very kind. When her mom died, she got, you know, like different. Back in the D.R. her mom died. Since then she wasn’t the same person. She was depressed, sad.”
Yauger’s arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending Wednesday.