NEW YORK (AP) - The 5-year-old brother of a 3-year-old New York City girl police say was fatally beaten by her stepfather over the weekend has given detectives a detailed account of the assault, telling investigators the beating was prompted after the girl soiled her diaper, authorities said Monday.
Kelsey Smith forced stepdaughter Jeida Torres to smell the dirty diaper then kicked her, banged her head against a bed frame and choked her in a facility for the homeless in Brooklyn, the toddler's older brother said, according to police.
The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, determining the girl was killed by blunt impact injuries to her head and body, according to spokeswoman Julie Bolcer.
Smith, 20, also beat the 5-year-old, causing him to bruise, police said. The boy was at a hospital in Brooklyn in stable condition. Smith was arrested Sunday and charged by police with assault and acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17. Charges were expected to be upgraded.
It wasn't known if Smith had an attorney. He remained hospitalized Monday in Manhattan after allegedly trying to slit his wrists at his mother's Queens home. His mother called police Saturday after having a conversation with him and becoming worried that he might harm himself, police said.
Camille Rivera, deputy commissioner for the Department of Homeless Services, said in a statement that officials are investigating the death.
Housing Bridge, a homeless services nonprofit, has a contract with the city to run the Brooklyn facility where the beating occurred, said Harry Fried, the group's chief operating officer. He said he wasn't permitted to comment further.
Smith, who police said was married to the children's 24-year-old mother, had lived with the family at the Brooklyn apartment for three months. He has 15 prior arrests, including a 2010 arrest for robbery in which police say he slammed a 14-year-old boy into an iron gate, kicked him on the ground, then put his knee on the boy's throat before stealing his wallet with $10 in it, records show. Smith was 15 at the time of that arrest.
He has also been arrested three times while jailed on Rikers Island, charged last October with assault for shoving a correction officer into a door, splashing two correction officers with an unknown liquid in February and flooding a cell by damaging a sprinkler head, causing his cell to flood last November, according to records.
His uncle, Mark Almodovar, told the Daily News his nephew wasn't a monster but said "the way he disciplined them was very wrong."