Damion Comager and Ivana Paolozzi, parents of 3-month-old Genevieve Comager whose body was found in the Bronx, appear in court
NEW YORK - Damion Comager and Ivana Paolozzi, the parents of 3-month-old Genevieve Comager, whose body was found in a wooded area in the Bronx, appeared in court Wednesday.
Charges include murder, manslaughter and concealment of a corpse.
"He said it was a mistake," Donald Comager said.
Donald Comager is Genevieve's paternal grandfather. Speaking from Louisiana by phone, he said his son Damion Comager, 23, maintains the death was an accident. The medical examiner ruled Genevieve's death a homicide.
"That day, I don't know if he was upset or frustrated," Donald Comager said. "All I know, he loved his daughter."
Damion Comager and Paolozzi, 20, were walked out of the 44th Precinct Monday night.
"I love my daughter and I'm sorry," Damion Comager said.
Wednesday, they appeared at Bronx Criminal Court, where prosecutors said the night of May 13, Damion Comager shook his daughter, "causing her to be unresponsive, resulting in her death."
But Comager and Paolozzi did not seek help, prosecutors said. Instead, they allegedly dressed the infant in a onesie and a hat and placed her in a stroller and brought her to a wooded area off 161st Street and placed the baby in a garbage bag and disposed of her body.
Two weeks later, on May 28, prosecutors said the Administration for Children's Services reached out to Paolozzi who said they were all "alive, safe and had relocated to Louisiana," when they were in fact still in New York.
That same day, the grandfather pressed his son about Genevieve's whereabouts.
"He told me he shook her because she was screaming, and he went to sleep. And he woke up and she was stiff, she was cold," Donald Comager said.
Donald Comager reported his son to police, who admitted what happened to investigators. He and Paolozzi led them to the wooded area where Genevieve's body was disposed.
"I didn't know he was going through so much of a struggle," Donald Comager said. "They seemed fine. They had their issues. They needed money. We'd pay for stuff at Target and have them go pick it up."
Court documents showed Damion Comager was also wanted on assault charges in Colorado. He fled to Paris, then met Paolozzi in Switzerland. He was deported, and the couple moved to New York, where they were living with their baby in a shelter on University Avenue until her death.
Donald Comager said he's trying to get his granddaughter's body moved to Louisiana so she can have a proper burial.
Damion Comager is due back in court Friday.
