BRONX, N.Y. – A 19-year-old man has been indicted on murder charges after allegedly striking his girlfriend’s baby in the head, causing injuries that led to her death, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Jerome Thomas is accused of fatally punching one-year-old Imani-Dior Monique Mitchell while she was in his care for less than an hour.
The Bronx District Attorney’s Office said Thomas admitted in a video statement that he hit the baby twice with a “heavy hand.”
According to the investigation, on August 28, the child’s mother, Le’Nesha Mitchell, left her daughter with Thomas at their Union Avenue home in Melrose while she went to a nearby supermarket. When she returned, she found the toddler in bed with visible bruises and struggling to breathe.
Imani-Dior was rushed to NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, where doctors found she had extensive brain bleeding and swelling. She was later transferred to NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center for emergency surgery but could not be saved.
The girl was pronounced dead on September 5, and medical examiners determined the injuries were caused by a direct, forceful impact to her head.
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Thomas was arraigned on charges of second-degree murder, first- and second-degree manslaughter, and endangering the welfare of a child before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Alvin Yearwood. He remains in custody and is due back in court on January 14, 2026.
District Attorney Darcel D. Clark called the killing “unthinkable violence” and said the child’s mother “must now bear this horrible loss.”