MANHATTAN CRIMINAL COURT — The Bronx father who murdered his infant son and dumped the body upstate told investigators that he strangled the boy to stop him from crying then took a walk with his wife, a Bronx prosecutor said Wednesday.
Jose Feliciano's confession was read by Assistant District Attorney Astrid Borgstedt during an arraignment for the murder of his 2-month-old Mason Whyte via video Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
"Sometimes Mason wouldn’t stop crying," Feliciano told police, according to the prosecution. "We had a sectional. I would put him in between the sectional to muffle his cries. It didn’t work so I put my hands around his neck and squeezed it. I did it.”
Mason regained consciousness soon after Feliciano choked him the first time, according to prosecutors.
"He woke up and was screaming. I guess he was pissed," the ADA quoted Feliciano .
Feliciano put his hands around Mason's throat again and squeezed until his son lost consciousness, after which he and his wife took a walk around the block and hoped Mason would be fine when they returned, prosecutors said.
However, this was not the case.
"I didn't call the police because I was scared," Feliciano said, according to the prosecutor. "I didn’t go to the hospital."
He and his wife put Mason in a duffel bag and took his body to Brewster because it was "serene and secluded," Feliciano said, according to the DA's office.
They tried to bury him by the hotel where they were staying, but there were too many roots, and they were worried about getting caught, so they placed him face down on the ground with a blanket and a green teal shirt, the prosecutor said.
Police eventually found Mason's body by Kitchen Corner Road and Route 22 while conducting a canvass of Dover after Feliciano's wife told staff at New York Presbyterian Hospital in White Plains about her son's death.
Feliciano was ordered held without bail on the murder charges and is due back in court on Jan. 26 for the case.
He is represented by Edward McGowan of The Bronx Defenders, who did not respond to a request for comment.
