Mother charged with tossing newborn from 7th-floor window

A woman was charged this week with murder for allegedly throwing her newborn girl from a seventh-floor window in her boyfriend's Bronx apartment, NBC New York reported.

Jennifer Berry, 33, of Yonkers, was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, according to the New York Times. Police said the newborn was alive when she was thrown into an alleyway below the apartment.

The unidentified infant was found with her umbilical cord still attached, unconscious and unresponsive. She died on the scene of multiple blunt force trauma as a result of the fall. Berry initially told police the baby wasn't breathing when she threw her.

Assistant District Attorney Georgia Barker said in court Tuesday the baby was a healthy, eight-pound newborn.

"There was air in the lungs. This was a healthy baby girl," she said.

Police said Berry hid the inital pregnancy from friends and loved ones, and she told some she miscarried. 

“It takes your breath away any time some situation like this occurs,” neighbor Jeffrey Quarles told the New York Times, “where you can figure out something else could have been done.”

Prosecutors on Wednesday announced they were investigating the death of Berry's other child, an infant son, who died in 2008. The infant's death was ruled natural causes due to sudden infant death syndrome.

According to agency officials, Berry worked for the city's Administration for Child Services' child protective service branch from July 2007 to January 2008. It wasn't clear why she left the agency.

New York law allows new parents to anonymouly give up a child by leaving a baby up to 30 days old at a safe place without prosecution.

Contact Kristen DeSilva at kdesilva@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @kristendesilva