Boy, 4, Found Dead in Times Square Apartment Was Abused for Days: NYPD

A 4-year-old boy found dead in a Times Square apartment with burns and cuts on his body had been abused for several days, the police commissioner said Thursday.

Police found the boy, Myls Dobson, unconscious and unresponsive when they responded to a 911 call at a building on West 48th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue around 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The child was pronounced dead at Roosevelt Hospital. The boy's babysitter, 27-year-old Kryzie King, was arrested on charges of assault and reckless endangerment.

It wasn't immediately clear if King had an attorney. 

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said it was a "tragic, tragic death," and that the boy had "horrific injuries sustained over a period of days."

The boy had been in King's care at the apartment after his father was arrested last month, according to law enforcement sources.

The woman told police she put him on the bathroom counter Wednesday and left the room briefly. Police say King told them that the boy fell off the counter and landed in the empty bathtub.

Sources say he had cuts and burns -- including cigarette burns -- on his face and body, burns on his genitals and yellow foam around his mouth.

A source familiar with the case said King could not explain how the child received those injuries.

The boy's aunt, Orquidia Wade, said Myls was an "innocent boy, happy boy. He was a baby. He didn't deserve it." 

Wade said she's never met King, but couldn't imagine how anyone could hurt the child. 

"You had to be out of your mind to abuse a baby and kill him," she said. 

The boy has been known to child welfare authorities since 2011 when a neglect case was brought against his mother, sources close to the investigation tell NBC 4 New York. The child was living with his grandmother when his father, Okee Wade, petitioned for custody of the child, the sources said.

Wade was granted custody in August of 2012 but on the condition that child protective services visit the boy twice a month for one year. Those visits stopped just around the time a warrant was issued for Wade's arrest following an racketeering indictment in June for allegedly siphoning money from bank accounts in Atlantic City.

Wade left his son in the custody of King on Dec. 18 and was shortly after arrested in New York and extradited to New Jersey, where he remains in custody, the sources said.

Myls had been with King since his father was jailed, investigators said. Orquidia Wade said her brother loved Myls and would not place him in harm's way. 

"His son was his life. I don't think he knew about this," she said. "I guess this person fooled him as well." 

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