A mother was arrested by police after a 9-year-old girl was found dead in their Brooklyn apartment.
According to police, at 1:01 p.m. on May 15 officers responded to a call regarding a young girl in need of assistance inside an apartment at 571 Lincoln Place. Upon their arrival, officers found the victim, Shalom Guifarro, in a bedroom at the apartment with trauma to her head and bite marks on her back.
Paramedics rushed to the apartment and declared the child dead at the scene. The Medical Examiner has ruled Guifarro’s death as a homicide.
It was reported that employees in the restaurant underneath the apartment complained about a foul smell prior to Guifarro’s body being found. A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed that the victim’s mother, 48-year-old Shemene Cato, called 911 after Guifarro had been dead for around two hours.
Cato was brought in for questioning and later arrested on May 16. She was charged with murder, manslaughter, assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and criminal possession of a weapon.
Updated at 5:31 p.m. on May 16, 2022.
