Justin Kowalczik, dead child, found in Long Island backyard
Police have uncovered a child’s remains buried in the backyard of a Farmingdale, Long Island home.
The longtime boyfriend of the missing infant’s mother is a “person of interest” in the case, authorities said today.
Authorities arrived to the home on a welfare check of the 6-year-old son of Robert Rodriguez and Heather Kowalczik, but during the interviews, the the unreported death of her youngest son, Justin, who was born in 2009.
“I just broke down. I had to tell them what Robert did,” Heather Kowalczik, 29, told the New York Post.
Authorities started digging up the yard and soon found the infant’s corpse, three feet down near a fence in the yard.
The medical examiner is investigating the identity of the remains as well as the cause of death, said police, who are waiting for confirmation that body is that of little Justin.
Kowalczik told the Post that Rodriguez was abusive and had “barricaded” her in the house.
“He was pretty much keeping watch of me, he hit me in the head, smacked me in the face if I’d say anything,” she said.
[…] The landlords, Angela Lancia and her husband, Luigi, told ABC that they’d had enough since young Justin Kowalczik’s body was unearthed on Saturday. […]
[…] Justin’s body was found last Wednesday, buried in the backyard of the family’s Farmingdale home. The mother’s boyfriend, Robert Rodriguez, was described as the “person of interest.” (Full story here) […]