Police arrest mom for daughter’s death in Brooklyn fire

Police have arrested a Brooklyn mom whose 2-year-old daughter died alone in an apartment fire.

The fire in a second floor apartment at 755 Monroe St. in Bed-Stuy began shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday, police reported. After officials extinguished the blaze, Leila Aquino arrived and told firefighters that her daughter was inside the apartment at the time of the fire, prompting a search.

“She was crying, yelling, ‘My daughter’s in there!’” neighbor Shameeka Smith, 34, was quoted in a New York Daily News article.

Firefighters then found Kalenah Muldrow, 2, unconscious under a bed, NY1 reported. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Aquino, a stripper, had been out partying, police sources said to the Daily News, adding that the toddler is believed to have hidden under the bed in a panic when the fire started.

“She used to take care of her,” Kalenah’s paternal great-grandmother, Jean Archibald, 73, said to the Daily News, describing Aquino. “I’ve never heard of [her] doing anything like this. I guess people change.”

Aquino has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment, police stated. The investigation is active and ongoing.