Adonis Jarvis, autistic and nonverbal, weighed 59 pounds when he died. The twin brother, found in similar conditions, survived.
In the Bronx, the mother and grandmother were charged with the death of 16-year-old Adonis Jarvis. The boy died on March 19 at Lincoln Hospital, where he was brought by his mother, Geneva Jarvis, 36 years old. The city’s coroner classified death as murder and attributed it to malnutrition, dehydration and prolonged hunger.
On Thursday, July 30, Geneva Jarvis and his mother, Denise Jarvis, 62 years old, were arrested: they have to respond to man-made murder, aggression and danger for a person unable to provide himself. Both declared themselves not guilty and were held without bail. The accusation is also of maltreatment and strong malnutrition towards the twin brother of Adonis, found in similar but survived conditions.
Adonis was affection, as well as the twin brother, from a serious form of autism: both never communicated through verbal language and had a clinical history of epileptic crisis. According to the prosecutors, they depended entirely on adults to eat, drink and receive assistance. When he died, Adonis weighed 59 pounds, about 27 kilograms. The brother weighed 60 pounds and, after sheltering in a rehabilitative structure, recovered about 30 pounds.
In court the prosecutors said that, at least from January, the two boys had remained in separate rooms for months, unable to walk and covered with decubited plagues, feces and flies. On March 19, her mother called 911 after she noticed that Adonis was not breathing. The boy had been taken to the hospital, while the agents immediately went to the family apartment, in a building of East 147th Street, in the district of Mott Haven, where they found the twin in similar conditions. The charges must be tried in court.
The apartment was on the third floor of a building without a lift. The images and descriptions collected after the boy’s death show floors covered by clothes, pizza boxes and waste, a dirty mattress and almost impractical rooms. According to the prosecutors, electricity was also missing in the house.
The neighbors told that for years the twins had been a habitual presence in the palace. They attended a public school for students with special needs and took the same bus as a resident’s daughter. In the last year, however, the bus stopped passing and the two boys were no longer in the neighborhood. A neighbor said she asked her mother and grandma where they were and she was told they were fine.
It was unclear why the boys stopped attending school. The school authorities in New York did not comment on the specific case, but said they had long sought to contact the family and offer their support.
The story reopened the debate on vulnerable minor controls. The Administration for Children’s Services, the city agency that deals with the protection of children, said it could not confirm any previous interventions because of the laws on confidentiality.
A report by the Department of Investigation in New York has reported that state rules often prevent the agency’s files from being examined in full. In 2025, according to the report, ACS had had contact with the families of 18 children, then dead, but the Department of Investigation had been able to fully analyze only one of those cases. It was not known if the Jarvis family were among them.
ACS is cooperating with the police in the investigation. The surviving brother was removed from the house and the two women received the order not to approach him.
L’articolo In the Bronx mother and grandmother accused of starving a 16-year-old boy comes from IlNewyorkese.
