Nearly five years have passed, but the memories are still vivid.
Word of an arrest last week in the death of newborn twins jolted neighbors in a Bronx apartment building back to the day the boys’ bodies were discovered behind the property.
Washing dishes on that fall afternoon, Gladys Lugo peered out of her first-floor window and noticed the building’s superintendent pulling a rumpled bundle of blankets from the trash, she recalled. Another resident, Juan Santana, was walking his dogs down the block when he came across emergency workers, fighting back tears.
No one suspected that Stephanie Castillo, 36, a former building resident who was arraigned Thursday on murder charges in the babies’ deaths, had any role in the tragedy, several of her former neighbors said. “Never in a million years,” said Jessica Ramos, who lived down the hall from Ms. Castillo. No one could recall even knowing that Ms. Castillo was pregnant. Prosecutors said that DNA evidence identified Ms. Castillo as the mother of the children.
“They would have been 5 this November. That’s my daughter’s age,” Ms. Ramos said of the twins, Zeke and Zane. Those were the names that police officers posthumously gave the boys after their remains were found on Nov. 9, 2020.
“We have a lot of questions,” she said.
What prompted the killings, and why it took nearly five years to charge Ms. Castillo, remains unclear. Ms. Castillo had lived with family members on the fourth floor in the six-story prewar complex on College Avenue near Claremont Park, where many residents have known one another for at least a decade. Mr. Santana said he and his children often exchanged greetings with her when they came across her walking her dog.
Neighbors ran into each other less frequently during the pandemic, when Ms. Castillo would have been carrying the twins. It was during that period of upheaval that investigators recovered the bodies of the boys in an alleyway, according to a criminal complaint that said that the infants died of blunt force trauma.
Ms. Castillo, who has been hospitalized since her arrest last week, appeared remotely at her arraignment on Thursday at Bronx Criminal Court, where she faced first-degree murder charges. From a television screen, she listened to the charges, which also included second-degree murder and first-and-second-degree manslaughter.
She is expected to return to court in September. Her lawyer could not be reached for comment.
At the College Avenue building, Ms. Lugo recalled when investigators appeared soon after the grim discovery of the bodies. Detectives began to question residents, including Ms. Lugo, and told her that the babies were dead. “I cried so much,” she said.
In the weeks that followed, the tight-knit community was under a harsh spotlight. News reporters showed up, police cars remained parked outside and many of the residents were fingerprinted, Ms. Lugo said.
Ms. Castillo remained in the building until roughly a year ago, when the rumor among residents was that she had argued with a family member and moved out. She later landed at a homeless shelter on Jerome Avenue near East 177th Street in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx.
Her roommate at the shelter, Daniela Ricciardi, 44, described her as depressed but a “sweet” person who would look out for others but did not know how to ask for help for herself. Other residents at the shelter said that Ms. Castillo was distant and withdrawn.
Last week, amid the sweltering heat, Ms. Castillo seemed to snap out of her stupor, Ms. Ricciardi recalled, and she said she wanted to play among a flock of birds that had landed near the shelter. So they did, and also darted through the spraying water of a nearby fire hydrant. “We got soaked,” Ms. Ricciardi said.
Moments later, Ms. Ricciardi said, the police pulled up to the shelter and arrested Ms. Castillo.
Chelsia Rose Marcius is a criminal justice reporter for The Times, covering the New York Police Department.
Urvashi Uberoy is an engineer contributing to The Times’s data-driven journalism.
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