Starving 4-Year-Old Locked in Apartment with his Dead Mother

When police arrived at the apartment where a foul odor had been reported, at union New Jersey, they used the master key the apartment owners provided to open the door a crack, but the inner chain prevented it from opening all the way. Inside they saw a naked four-year-old boy wearing only one sneaker on the wrong foot. They asked him to back up, and kicked the door open.

Inside they saw an overheated apartment reduced to squalor, and, ultimately, they found the boy’s mother, Kiana Workman, 38, who had been dead for four days and was decomposing.

The boy, meanwhile, was unable to open the refrigerator and survived by eating from a bag of sugar.

The boy did into fully understand the situation. He had tried rubbing lotion on his mother to revive her.

“He was very tired obviously,” said a police-officer who talked with him, “But he was very bright and articulate,” as reported by ABC News.

Coming to terms with the situation will of course take some time. As the police officer Silvia Dimenna, said “They put him with someone who can really address his issues at this point.”

His mother, meanwhile, apparently has died of natural causes, though an autopsy has been postponed for now due to the extent of her decomposition. It is uncertain who will take custody of the boy at this point.