A GIRL aged 2 was in a critical condition last night after spending more than four days locked in a car with the body of her murdered mother.

Rosie Batista was severely dehydrated when firefighters broke into the vehicle which was parked on a busy street in the New York borough of Queens. Rosie’s mother, Césarina Colón, a social worker, had been beaten and strangled by her partner, Leonardo Almonte, who covered her bloodied body with a coat after dragging it to the car.

He strapped the toddler in her car seat and left a bottle of milk just out of her reach. Almonte, a grocery store owner, admitted the killing and has been charged with murder, kidnapping and reckless endangerment.

Police were investigating why the mother and daughter had not been discovered earlier. Twenty-four hours before the horrific discovery, a police car was dispatched to check the vehicle after a passer-by called the emergency services. But the officers were not told to look out for the child, and they drove off without getting out of their vehicle.

Almonte confronted Ms Colón in the flat they shared on Saturday, October 23, after she said that she wanted to leave and return to Rosie’s father. He waited until the early hours of last Sunday before placing her body and Rosie in Ms Colón’s grey Toyota sports vehicle and driving it two miles before neatly parking it. Surveillance cameras on a storage facility nearby showed the vehicle pulling up with its lights off. Moments later a lone figure hurried away.

In the following days several people, including a traffic warden, peered into the vehicle before moving on.

It was not until Wednesday that a passer-by was concerned enough to dial 911 and alert the emergency services. But the police dispatcher who took the call told the responding patrol car only to look for a suspicious vehicle.

Raymond Kelly, the New York City police commissioner, said that the patrol car drove by several minutes later but officers did not see little Rosie inside.

Mr Kelly said: “The caller spoke specifically about a baby in a car. However, the dispatcher didn’t give that information out and didn’t put out the plate number even though the dispatcher had the plate number.

“We are investigating that, but don’t know why the information was not put forward.”

It was not until 11.30am on Thursday that a man who knew Ms Colón and knew her to be missing spotted her car.

Doctors said that Rosie was calm when she was pulled from the car, awake but not crying. She had low oxygen levels and low blood pressure, though she improved after being treated with IV fluids. They said that mild weather was critical to helping Rosie survive.

Ms Colón, a social worker, met Almonte last year. In July, she bought a $475,000 (£260,000) home in the South Jamaica neighbourhood with Almonte, who put up $40,000. When she told him that she wanted to end their relationship, he demanded his money back, according to friends.

SURVIVAL INSTINCT

• October, 2004: Yuta Minagawa, 2, pulled alive from a car that had been buried under rock and mud for four days after an earthquake in Japan. His mother and sister died
• September 2004: Asia McCoy, six months, is found after five days alone in a mobile home in Texas with her father, whose cause of death is unknown
• April 2004: Ruby Bustamante, 6, is found ten days after her mother’s car left a highway in Los Angeles and fell into a ravine. Ruby, whose mother was killed, lived on dried noodles and energy drinks
• January 2004: Angel Emery, 3, is found five days after her mother’s car hit a tree and plunged off a remote highway in Arizona

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