A mother and her 8-year-old son were found dead inside their Bronx apartment on Friday night, along with her 4-year-old daughter, who was alive and alone, according to the police and the woman’s family.
The woman, 38, whose name has not yet been publicly released but who was identified by her family on Saturday as Lisa Cotton, was discovered at around 8:30 p.m. after the police received a 911 call requesting assistance at her apartment in the Wakefield neighborhood.
Upon arrival, police officers found Ms. Cotton and her son — who, according to his uncle, had a disability that inhibited him from walking or eating solid foods — lying unconscious in the apartment, as well as the 4-year-old girl, who was awake.
Emergency medical workers arrived shortly after the police and pronounced Ms. Cotton and her son dead, the police said. They transported the girl to the Montefiore Medical Center in Wakefield, where she was in stable condition on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear how long Ms. Cotton and her son had been dead before they were discovered, or how long her younger daughter had been surviving alone in the apartment.
Neither Ms. Cotton nor her son showed any obvious signs of injury when they were discovered, according to a law enforcement official. The police said the city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner was investigating the cause of death on Saturday.
During a brief interview on Saturday, Ms. Cotton’s brother, Akim Cotton, said that the 911 call had come from Ms. Cotton’s older daughter, 17, who did not live in the apartment but had come by to check on her family. There, she had found her mother and brother on the floor and her sister sitting on the bed.
Mr. Cotton, who lives in Sacramento, Calif., said the police arrived soon after his niece’s 911 call. After determining that the mother and the son were dead, the authorities called Mr. Cotton’s father, who informed the rest of the family.
“We all have to accept death in our life, but whenever you accept the death of someone that you know, whether a sibling or friend, at an early age, it’s devastating,” Mr. Cotton said.
Mr. Cotton, 41, said that his sister, who grew up in the Bronx, had been under significant stress trying to care for her son.
In order to go outside, Ms. Cotton had to carry his wheelchair down a flight of stairs to the lobby of their apartment building, which has no elevator, and then return to the apartment to carry her son down.
The circumstances had put tremendous strain on his sister, said Mr. Cotton, who added that his nephew had needed someone more qualified to care for him.
“My sister, she didn’t really have too many people to help,” Mr. Cotton said, citing their father and stepmother’s advanced age and medical issues.
On Saturday, neighbors in Ms. Cotton’s building in the Bronx described her as a nice woman who had at times seemed troubled.
One neighbor, who identified herself only by her first name, Sabrina, said she had cooked for the family a few times. Ms. Cotton, she said, was “a nice girl” who loved her children.
“I’ll miss her so much,” she said.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
Alyce McFadden is a reporter covering New York City and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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