A 4-year-old boy had been discovered in a Union apartment with the body of his dead mother.

Police say the boy was discovered emancipated and dehydrated according to WNBC TV which says a maintenance man checking on the strong smell coming from the second floor apartment at the Manor Run Apartments when he saw the boy inside through a chained door.

The boy, who couldn't open the refrigerator door because he wasn't strong enough according to police, rubbed his mother's body with lotion in hopes she would be "healed." He is hospitalized in University Hospital in stable condition.

The unidentified mother is believed to have died of natural causes and had been deceased for five or six days reports WNBC TV.

A grandmother who recently broke two hips and was moved out of the apartment lives in a nearby nursing home and had tried unsuccessfully to reach her daughter. The mother's brother lives in Brooklyn according to Union Township police director Daniel Zieser.

 

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