Here are the first heart-wrenching images of the beautiful 1-month-old girl who was mauled to death by the family dog inside a Queens housing project early Tuesday morning.
Photos obtained by The Post appears to show the tragic baby dozing as a newborn in the hospital and later at home before her gruesome death this week.
The horrific incident unfolded shortly after 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, when the baby’s mother called 911 after finding the baby grievously injured in an apartment at the Queensbridge Houses public housing complex.
Law enforcement sources said the family’s six-week-old German Shepherd-pit bull mix was gnawing at the and had bitten a “substantial portion” of her face.
Neighbors reported hearing screams from the apartment at 12th Street and 41st Avenue as EMS first-responders tried in vain to save the baby.
Yvette Mathurin, 69, said the girl’s mom lived with her when she was dating her son — and said the mother has also lived in a shelter in recent years before moving into the public housing unit.
“We keep in touch all the time. She called me mama,’ Mathurin said. “She told me she had a baby. She told me the baby was beautiful.
“One thing I know is she loved kids because my son and she used to treat the daughter like her own,” she added. “I feel so sorry for her.”
One neighbor recalled hearing the tortured screams coming from the apartment Tuesday morning, and recalled discussing the dog with the tragic girl’s mom just two days earlier.
“Mother was standing right here holding the baby, waiting for the elevator,” building resident Shanel Norville told The Post on Tuesday. “Then she went back, forgot something, and the dog wasn’t on the leash – is never on a leash – walked onto the elevator by itself and went down and got off on some floor.
“I told her, ‘That dog needs to be on a leash,” Norville said. “She said, ‘No, this dog don’t bite.’ I said, ‘All dogs bite. That dog needs to be on a leash.’ And she just looked at me like, whatever.”