The mother of a 5-year-old girl found dead in her Queens home Wednesday confessed in a dramatic 911 call, telling the dispatcher: “I killed my daughter,” a police source told the News.
Little Fabiana Cabello was found unconscious, bleeding from her mouth and nose inside the 110th St. home near 95th Ave. in Richmond Hill after her mother called 911 to report an assault about 6:55 p.m. Wednesday, officials said.
The child was rushed to Jamaica Hospital, where she later died.
The mother, who is in her 30s, had a history of mental health problems recorded by the NYPD, who have responded to the home in the past, a police source with knowledge of the case said.
She was hospitalized Thursday and is being psychiatrically evaluated. Once doctors at the hospital clear her, she’s expected to be criminally charged in connection with Fabiana’s death, the police source said. It was not immediately clear what the charge will be.
Outside the home on Thursday, Fabiana’s father, the mother’s ex-boyfriend, Kuldeep Singh, told the Daily News his ex was a loving mother who he would never suspect could be involved in the girl’s death.
“I never see anything in her actions to cause concern,” Singh said. “She cared for her so much. When I took my daughter, she called me many times to check on her, like, “Everything okay? Any problems?” he recalled.
Singh, 36, an Uber driver, did not live with his daughter, whom he called “Fabi,” but spoke to her nightly on the phone. When he last saw her two weeks ago, she seemed happy and normal, he said.
“Two weeks ago she was with me, playing,” he said. “She was happy with me. She kiss me 100 times.”
He shared a voice message Fabiana sent him saying, “Hi Papa, how are you?”
Fabiana had recently started kindergarten, according to Singh, who bought her new clothes and school supplies.
The little girl’s mother often asked for help parenting, but Singh, who has three older children in India, said his schedule as an Uber driver prevented him from seeing his daughter more frequently.
In a phone call Oct. 7, “she said I need to pick up my daughter for two or three days. I tell her I’m busy because that time I had a ride,” said Singh through tears. “She tell me, ‘You are always busy. You need to take care of your daughter.’ I tell her, ‘Give me time,’” he sobbed.
Neighbor Luis Salomon Perez, 60, said his grandchildren often played with Fabiana, who he described as “a good girl, very decent, kind and cheerful.” About six months ago, Perez said he noticed a change in her mother.
“She used to come around to take her daughter to school and then, from one moment to another, she stopped coming out,” Perez said in Spanish.
“She was a good mother, but she was suffering from depression. I even spoke to her sister about it, how she was acting depressed, hardly ever leaving the house, not even taking the child to school or out to play anymore.”
The conversation happened three or four days before the tragedy, according to Perez.
“It’s a heartbreaking story. It really hurt those neighbors who knew her,” Perez said.
Fabiana and her mom briefly lived in a rented room in Perez’s home for a few months last year before moving back into the house they shared with extended family down the street, said Perez’s niece, who gave her name only as Melissa.
The mother “wanted to be independent. That’s what we were told,” Melissa said. “You could kind of tell she was very isolated and paranoid.”
The little girl “was very huggy. She was very kind. She liked to run around with the dogs and the other children in the neighborhood,” Melissa said. While she never observed any abusive behavior, she said Fabiana’s mother would attempt to isolate her daughter.
“She felt very protective of the child,” she said. “She’d be with her, but she would just not want her to be playing.”
In a heartbreaking video shared with The News, officers responding to the scene can be seen rushing a tiny, limp figure wrapped in a blanket into a police car before more officers escort a handcuffed woman out of the house.
Detectives were questioning the child’s family to determine what happened in the hours leading up to the girl’s death. No arrests have been made.
“This is a pretty quiet block so to hear something like this it definitely brings a lot of emotions to everyone around here,” neighbor Vaughn Sewdyal said.
The city Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death, an NYPD spokeswoman said.
