A Missouri man has been arrested after he allegedly left his 3-year-old son home alone in his apartment, leaving the child to wander into a hallway and fall to his death from the 11th floor.
Tarvis T. Phenix Jr. was charged with one count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child resulting in death in connection with the incident that took place on April 10 in St. Louis.
Officers with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department responded to an apartment in the early hours of April 10 after Phenix, 26, called to report a missing child, Us Weekly can confirm.
Phenix told police that his young son had disappeared, and officers located the boy soon after “outside the back of the apartment,” where he had died after he fell “to the pavement.”
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage, which captured the moments leading up to the boy’s death.
Phenix allegedly left the apartment at 11:52 p.m. on April 9 and drove away from the complex, according to police. Around 12:36 a.m., the toddler was seen leaving the apartment alone and wandering the floor.
The boy then went to the elevator lobby, where two built-in benches were positioned under the ledges of two open windows.
“At 12:44 a.m., the victim climbed on a bench in the elevator lobby,” the affidavit stated. “The victim looked out the open window, climbed on the ledge and out of the window, and then fell out of the window. Outside of the window is a straight drop to the concrete at the ground level.”
Phenix returned home just minutes later at 12:51 a.m.
Prosecutors argued that Phenix “knowingly acted in a manner that created a substantial risk” to the child’s life by leaving him unsupervised in the high-rise apartment, which ultimately led to his death.
The boy has since been identified by family members as Tarvis Jr., and they gathered to remember him following the tragedy.
Relatives said that the boy was deeply loved and expressed their concerns about safety conditions in the building, according to KMOV.
“These hallway windows, they stay open, they don’t lock, there’s no screen, none of that,” the boy’s great-aunt, Andrea Armour, told KMOV.
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Authorities have not discussed the building’s conditions in regards to the criminal charge.
The St. Louis Housing Authority, which owns the apartment complex, is conducting its own investigation into the matter alongside police.
It is not currently clear if Phenix has entered a plea or retained legal counsel following his arrest. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department had no further updates to share when contacted by Us Weekly.
