Child Sat With Bodies of Slain Mom and Man for 3 Days After Shooting

Police were called to a Syracuse apartment for a report of loud banging on the day prosecutors believe a man and woman there were shot dead.

Three days later, a visiting nurse discovered the dead man and woman, and a disabled child alive, prosecutors said. The boy survived three days in the apartment alone with the bodies.

The woman and man — Alexis Sellin, 32, and Jamie Crawford, 46 — were found dead in the apartment on Burnet Avenue at about 3:30 p.m. Aug. 24, police said. (A family member has said Crawford’s first name is Jami.)

Sellin’s son, who is blind and a paraplegic, was in the apartment with the bodies for three days, according to District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who said authorities believe the adults were killed Aug. 21.

At 1:45 a.m. that Sunday, Aug. 21, neighbors in the apartment building called 911 to report loud bangs, Assistant District Attorney Shaun Chase said. Neighbors reported to 911 a pounding noise and said it sounded like someone was trying to enter an apartment, according to dispatches from the Onondaga County 911 Center.

Officers were dispatched and about six minutes after the initial call told dispatchers there was “no loud banging,” according to dispatches. It is not clear from the dispatches what the officers did at the apartment building that night.

Even if the police had managed to enter the apartment there is nothing they could’ve done to save Crawford and Sellin, Chase said. “They were dead within moments,” he said. “No chance.”

Surveillance footage shows that the people responsible for the deaths left the apartment before police arrived, Chase said. It is believed more than one person was present when the shootings occurred, he said.

Prosecutors have ruled out the deaths being a murder-suicide, he said.

Authorities initially did not talk to the boy because he was recovering from not eating for three days, Chase said.

Lt. Matthew Malinowski, a spokesperson for Syracuse police, declined to answer any specific questions about the police call to the apartment.

Speaking in general, Malinowski said officers take responses to noise complaints as a “case-by-case scenario.” If an officer hears the noise, they usually knock on the door, he said. If there are sounds of a disturbance officers usually attempt to talk with the people involved, he said.

As a baby, the boy was badly injured by his father violently shaking him, leaving the child blind and a paraplegic. The boy is now 6. The baby boy suffered critical injuries — including bleeding on the brain — when he was shaken, prosecutors said.

The boy’s father, Markese Smalls, 30, of Baldwinsville was found guilty in January 2017 of reckless assault of a child. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison; he was released in February.