A Staten Island man charged with tossing his 1-year-old niece down an apartment building garbage chute had just one word for the panicked dad trying to find the baby girl: “incinerator.”
Aaron Henderson was confronted by his brother after the desperate dad was unable to find his daughter in their third-floor Park Hill apartment Monday, according to court documents.
After Henderson admitted that he had tossed the girl three floors down into the basement incinerator, the father rushed downstairs and pulled her out, a criminal complaint says.
“He just says the word ‘incinerator,’” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said, adding that Henderson was acting out after a recent death in the family.
Henderson, 39, was arraigned Wednesday and charged with assault, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child.
The 15-month-old girl miraculously survived the fall. Despite the three-story drop, the baby suffered only a small brain bleed, a hematoma to the side of her head a black eye and injuries to her elbow and shoulder.
The incinerator inside the seven-story building near Steuben St. and Weser Ave, wasn’t turned on when she landed, officials said.
According to the criminal complaint, the events leading up to the near-fatal drop were caught on camera. Surveillance video shows Henderson walking toward the garbage chute with the baby in his arms until he is out of camera range, and then returning without the girl.
Neighbors in the building were outraged.
“That’s sad. To put a baby down to the garbage,” neighbor Keisha Lacey told ABC 7 Eyewitness News on Monday. “Nobody in their right state of mind would do something like that to a child.”
Henderson, who is autistic, was taken into custody and given a psychological evaluation, officials said. He was charged after it was deemed that he could participate in his own defense.
Originally Published: July 25, 2025 at 3:21 PM EDT
