The one-month-old child of a Long Island TV news host, as well as the infant's babysitter, were both found unresponsive last night. The boy Michael, son of reporter Michael Baldwin II who hosts "Diverse Long Island," was later pronounced dead; the babysitter, 39-year-old Teresa Coffey, was also pronounced dead. The medical examiner is conducting autopsies to try to determine the causes of death.
"This kid has been my life. And now, my boy is gone," Baldwin told Newsday.
Baldwin told NBC that Coffey was an acquaintance of his wife and had been asking for an opportunity to watch the infant, who had only come home on August 18 after spending weeks in the hospital for a medical condition. When Baldwin, a freelancer at News 12 Long Island, was called in Thursday, he asked Coffey to watch Michael for him. Around 6:30 p.m., he got a message from Coffey saying she needed to talk to him—he added that he could hear his son crying in the background.
After calling "dozens of times" with no response, he returned home to find Coffey "slumped over" in the living room, but couldn't find his son. When he tried shaking her to wake her up, he discovered his son underneath her, not breathing. While they are still trying to put together what happened, police do not believe carbon monoxide was a factor in their deaths.
