An autistic Bronx teen died of starvation and neglect — and his mother and grandmother have been charged with his murder, cops said Thursday.
Adonis Jarvis, 16, was just 60 pounds, according to a police source, when he died at Lincoln Hospital after allegedly suffering horrific neglect inside his family’s Mott Haven apartment on E. 147th St. near Brook Ave.
His twin, who is also autistic, barely survived similar treatment from the family, police sources said.
A city Medical Examiner autopsy determined Adonis died from “chronic neglect including starvation and dehydration,” and noted he was disabled from autism and epilepsy and dependent on his caretakers. The agency deemed his death a homicide.
Geneva Jarvis, mother of Adonis Jarvis, in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 40th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx on Thursday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
The nonverbal teen’s 36-year-old mother, Geneva Jarvis, and 62-year-old grandmother, Denise Jarvis, were arrested Thursday morning and charged with murder following the autopsy.
Geneva had Adonis and his twin brother taken to Lincoln Hospital on March 19. Both boys were malnourished at the time, police sources said, and Adonis died there that day. Hospital staff alerted police to the suspicious death.
Dennis Rivera, the super at the family’s building, said the mother had “signed them out of school” a few months before medics came to their apartment in March.
“When the ambulance came, the grandmother was downstairs waiting for them. They asked, ‘Where’s the patient?’ She said, ‘He’s in the hallway.’ She didn’t want them to go into the apartment,” said Rivera. “The boy looked like a skeleton.”
Adonis Jarvis (right) and his twin brother in a photo posted to Facebook in 2025. (Facebook)
Rivera, who had only been inside the family’s third-floor unit once or twice, said he was stunned to find towering piles of boxes, garbage and clothes crowding their home. A Daily News reporter photographed similar circumstances inside the overstuffed filthy apartment Thursday.
“It was nasty. Even the walls were broken. The city had to remove over two hundred pounds of clothes,” the super said. “[The mother] didn’t talk to us and she never let us in the apartment.”
Rivera said he’d offered to repair the walls and clean up the apartment but Geneva always brushed him off, repeatedly telling him he could do it “tomorrow.”
“They are nice people. I never saw them do anything bad to the kids,” he added. “[Their mother] was always there to take them to and from school. Every day she bought four pieces of Dominos pizza but I didn’t know if she fed them.”
“They used to be strong but then she had to push them up the steps. They couldn’t climb,” Rivera said.
Denise Jarvis, grandmother of Adonis Jarvis, in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 40th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx on Thursday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Adonis’ twin, who is also autistic, is recovering at a rehab facility, the sources said. Neither boy had been attending school.
Another neighbor whose disabled daughter went to Public School 811X with the twins said Adonis’ death came as a shock.
“We heard one of them had died. We thought it was something else. We thought he got sick,” Christine Valentin, 54, said. “I never saw them dirty or anything that would alarm anyone. They were tall, slim and you could tell they had other conditions.”
Inside the family’s apartment on E. 147th St. in the Bronx Thursday. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Valentin said she once gave the mother and grandmother diapers for the boys and even gave them her phone number to reach out if they ever needed help.
“They were very disabled. They needed a lot of help. It was more than the mom and grandma could handle,” she said. “It’s sad. It’s a shock. It could have been prevented.”
The mother and grandmother said nothing as they were led in handcuffs out of the NYPD’s 40th Precinct stationhouse to be arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court. The family has no apparent history with the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, a police source said.
Inside the family’s apartment on E. 147th St. in the Bronx Thursday. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Inside the family’s apartment on E. 147th St. in the Bronx Thursday. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)