A father who was not allowed to live with his 5-month-old baby but appeared to be living there anyway is charged with the baby’s death and has been sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for a mental evaluation.
“Ma, what’s wrong with the baby,” Anthony Decosta allegedly yelled the evening of Sept. 5, 2021, according to a statement a 9-year-old girl in the house made to police.
Anthony Decosta, 36, was arrested July 11 and charged with manslaughter, reckless endangerment of a child and witness intimidation, all connected to the death of his 5-month-old daughter Francesca that night.
He was scheduled for arraignment Thursday, but that was continued to Friday where the judge ordered the mental health evaluation. Decosta is due back in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on Aug. 3
The July before baby Francesca’s death, the state Department of Children and Families took custody of the girl on the orders of a Norfolk County probate court. The agency put her in the custody of her grandmother, Lisa Decosta, 60, of the 100-block of Pleasant Street in Norwood.
Lisa Decosta is also charged with reckless endangerment of a child and witness intimidation.
As part of the foster care agreement, Anthony Decosta nor the baby’s mother — who is unnamed in court papers — were allowed to live in the Pleasant Street home. But when first responders showed up at around 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2021, for an ambulance call for the unresponsive child, it appeared that Anthony Decosta was not abiding by that rule, according to the prosecution’s Statement of the Case.
Anthony Decosta “appeared disheveled and under the influence of narcotics,” the document states.
Massachusetts State Police troopers processed the scene after baby Francesca was rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Needham, where she was pronounced dead. There, they found a crib upstairs “filled with clothes” and under those, “a cigarette butt and baby nail clippers” on the sheetless crib, and prescription bottles with Anthony Decosta’s name on them scattered around.
“Police discovered a basement apartment with clothes, trash, dishes, cigarette butts as well as more prescription bottles with (his) name on them that were opened and contained pills scattered throughout the basement apartment,” the charging document notes, adding additional descriptions of messes and bad living conditions.
While Lisa Decosta told police that Anthony Decosta was not living there and that he was only onsite because she had called him when the baby became unresponsive, prosecutors allege there were no phone alls placed between them. On the contrary, prosecutors say that photos of Anthony Decosta with the baby were shared between them, including him allegedly holding the baby too close so hat it cut off the baby’s airways, as well as photos of Francesca with a pillow on her face.
While an autopsy was inconclusive, prosecutor Elizabeth McLaughlin wrote that “it is medically accepted that death as a result of suffocation or smothering may not leave apparent or visible signs on the body.”