Montrell Williams, a 2-year-old Bronx boy found dead in the East River after going missing for a month, was tossed into the water by his father Arius Williams while the toddler was still alive, prosecutors revealed at his arraignment Thursday.
Surveillance video shows Williams throwing his little boy into the Bronx River from a Bruckner Expressway overpass around midnight, prosecutors said. The child had been missing since May 10.
“We have video surveillance immediately prior to about a couple of minutes before him being thrown off the bridge, showing him with the child, and the child appears to be alive and was standing for a brief period of time, so he was alive,” ADA Astrid Borgstedt said in Bronx Criminal Court Thursday.
“Then we have video surveillance, as I stated, showing him throwing the child over the bridge into the water. And then we have video surveillance showing the defendant shortly thereafter, at the other end of the bridge, walking in front of gas station, where he appears to be without the child.”
Williams, 20, has been locked up on Rikers Island since Monday, a day after he allegedly threatened Montrell’s 17-year-old mother with a knife and shouted at her to “Shut the f–k up! I threw that n—a in the river,” when she asked him where the boy was, according to court documents.
He was sent to jail for being in contempt of court for refusing to disclose to a Bronx Family Court judge where the missing boy was. On Thursday Williams was charged with killing his son. He was hit with an additional count each of murder and manslaughter for killing someone under 11 years old, officials said. He is also charged with menacing for pulling a knife on Montrell’s mother.
Williams was supposed to return the little boy to his mother on May 11 — the day after he rushed out of a family party carrying the boy, who was clad only in a t-shirt and diaper, and allegedly threw him into the river.
“The defendant failed to return the child, which we now know was already dead at that time,” Borgstedt said at the arraignment.
Williams’ family was sitting at the back of the courtroom and collectively gasped when prosecutors revealed the little boy is believed to have been alive when Williams threw him from the bridge.
“Oh my God!” a family member exclaimed.
When Williams failed to return Montrell to the boy’s mother, she contacted authorities, but Williams was not arrested until several weeks later.
“The mother did contact the police, and then proceeded to go to family court before the same family court judge who had issued the visitation order that was put into place approximately a year ago in 2024 — at that time, she filed a petition,” Borgstedt said. “And the judge there filed the writ, and there were several more writs over the ensuing weeks, trying to attempt him to produce the child. During that time period the defendant was elusive.”
On May 28, a family court judge issued a warrant for Williams to produce the little boy, but Williams was not taken into custody until June 8, when Montrell’s mother confronted him after a chance encounter on the street.
After spotting Williams when she was getting off a bus, Montrell’s mother “immediately went over to him and was demanding to know where the child was and have the child returned,” Borgstedt said.
“The defendant initially refused to answer her questions, but then eventually said, ‘Okay, I’ll take you to Montrell.’ And then took her into St. Mary’s Park nearby, wherein she continued to ask him questions relating to the whereabouts of the child. At that time, the defendant pulled a knife out,” he said.
Williams, looking scruffy in tan prison scrubs, was impassive throughout the proceedings — glancing back at his family only once before being led away. The judge ordered that he undergo medical and psychiatric evaluations.
Police recovered the badly decomposed body of a small child believed to be Montrell about 50 yards from the East River shoreline near the Whitestone Bridge Wednesday afternoon. The city’s medical examiner’s office was conducting an autopsy on Thursday to determine how the boy died.
Montrell Williams, 2, was last seen by his mother on Saturday, May 10, 2025. (Instagram)
Montrell Williams, 2, was last seen by his mother on May 10. (Instagram)
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Montrell Williams, 2, was last seen by his mother on Saturday, May 10, 2025. (Instagram)
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The body resembled the missing child and was dressed in a Calvin Klein T-shirt — the same article of clothing the toddler was wearing when he disappeared with his dad a month ago, heartbroken family members say cops told them.
“We are grieving,” the mother of the child said outside her Bronx home Wednesday evening. “My family is grieving. I have no words.”
“There are moments that we captured [on video] that were unthinkable,” NYPD Chief of Department John Chell told WABC Eyewitness News Wednesday. “What a catastrophe. What a shame. What a horror, totally evil.”
“He puts the child down, wraps him in a white blanket and throws him off the bridge,” a law enforcement source told a reporter for the Daily News, describing the harrowing video. “In the video you can see the arc of the body when he throws him,” the source said.
A second law enforcement source described the footage as “awful.”
Montrell was visiting his dad so the two could attend a Mother’s Day celebration with Williams’ family. But Williams got into a fight with his own mother and stormed out of the home with little Montrell. That was the last time anyone saw the child alive.
A few hours later, Williams showed up at a cousin’s home without the child. When family members asked him where his son was, all he would say was, “He’s gone! He’s gone!” they said.
Concerned family members reached out to police but they were told nothing could immediately be done because Montrell was on an approved visit with his dad, law enforcement sources said.
Originally Published: June 12, 2025 at 12:12 PM EDT
