Neighbors slam authorities for 'welfare check' that failed to find girl, 4, who was trapped in home with bodies of her dead mom and brother, 8

Neighbors living in the same building as a mother and son who died in their apartment have slammed authorities for not doing more to check on the family, after a four-year-old girl was rescued alive from the property.

Police had been called to the address four days before the child was eventually rescued. Credit: Douglas Sacha/Getty Images

As previously reported, Lisa Cotton, 38, and her son Nazir Millien, eight, were tragically found deceased at their home in the Bronx, New York, on Friday.

Lisa's four-year-old daughter Promise was found alive inside the apartment, having seemingly survived by eating chocolate.

The gruesome discovery was made after Lisa's landlord contacted her father, Hubert Cotton, 71, to ask if she had moved out of the property, after neighbors last reported seeing her around two weeks earlier.

He sent Lisa's eldest daughter to the home to check on the family, where she found Nazir - who was disabled after being born prematurely and required a feeding tube - slumped in his chair, covered in insects.

Hubert told the New York Post: "I had been trying to call her for days and she never answered. I figured she didn’t answer me because she didn’t want me to talk to me."

He added: "When she came in, [Nazir] was slumped over."

The young woman then went looking for Lisa but found four-year-old Promise "feeding herself with chocolate" on her mother’s bed.

"She picked her up and ran out and called the police," Hubert said, with a transcript of the 911 call stating that she had seen "bugs crawling" on Nazir's body.

It is not known how long the mom and son had been dead before they were found, but neighbors had reportedly been complaining of a foul odor that smelled like "death" for weeks.

Police had completed a welfare check on Tuesday - four days before the grim discovery was finally made - after receiving an anonymous 911 call, but left when nobody answered the door at the second-floor unit at East 231st Street.

Despite neighbors telling officers thst they hadn't seen Lisa or her children in two weeks, responding officers had no reason to break down the door as they did not hear any noises or notice any smells, police sources told the outlet.

A neighbor added: "[The police] said they’d be back in a few days. One of the social workers said she was trying to get a court order to have the door broken in."

Neighbors also claimed they'd heard "screaming" coming from the apartment for days.

Another neighbor, Sabrina Coleson, told the New York Post that the Administration for Children’s Services had also visited the property recently, but slammed them for not doing enough.

She told the outlet: "They didn’t do s**t. They were here ringing people’s bells the day before the wellness check. They were here, but they didn’t do s**t.

"One rang my bell and asked if I had any concerns for upstairs. And then a man opened his door and started yelling. Lisa was a very cool girl. I never saw her son with her, only the girl. It’s terrible."

Neither body reportedly had any signs of trauma, and police told Hubert that they believe Lisa, who had asthma, may have died of cardiac arrest, leaving Nazir to tragically starve to death.

Promise is believed to have kept herself alive by eating chocolate she found inside the home, and was brought to a local hospital in a stable condition.

Neighbors slammed the authorities for not doing more. Credit: kali9/Getty Images

Hubert is now looking after Promise in his Bronx home and mourned Nazir, who was "so small. I held him in my palm. Like a bird, like a young bird."

He believes Promise may be traumatized from living with the bodies of her mother and brother for several days, and explained that while she "hasn't said anything" she often looks at him "like she knows something".

Hubert, who is originally from St. Kitts, added that his daughter had struggled with her mental health and believed she may have had bipolar disorder.

He also broke down over the prospect of burying both his daughter and grandson, adding: "I’m sorry. . . . Two of them. How am I going to get the money? To bury both of them?"

Eric Perez, who lived above Lisa, added: "The landlord hadn’t done wellness checks, people had called, neighbors called.

"It just smells like rat infested . . . the exterminator said the same thing — the smell is similar to rats and even death."

Police sources also claimed that the mother had an Administration for Children’s Services case pending against her, after she was arrested in June 2021 on child abandonment charges.

Sources claimed she had been acting erratically, swinging her young daughter around in a stroller and lighting a wig on fire in front of a commercial strip on White Plains Road.

When the police arrived, she was allegedly found walking away from the child, and authorities said the case was later sealed.

A spokesperson for ACS told the New York Post that the agency is "investigating this tragedy with the NYPD" but declined to comment further.

Featured image credit: kali9/Getty Images