Man charged with murdering girlfriend's toddler

  Eyewitness News

LINDEN, NJ (WABC) -- The arrest came overnight. And now charged with first degree Murder is 27-year-old Nadir Starks.

Eyewitness News reporter Carolina Leid has the latest from Linden, New Jersey.

Prosecutors are not giving any details about how this toddler died-- other than police found the unresponsive body inside this Linden apartment complex building.

Right now, his mother's boyfriend is at the Union County jail charged with first degree murder.

Just after midnight Friday morning police found two year old Amir Thompson in acute distress.

Paramedics rushed the toddler to Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth where he later died.

April Morgan went to school with the boy's mother and says the mother kept to herself.

"We all wish her the best and hope that everyone really does find out what happened. But I'm pretty sure she would definitely like her privacy. They were quiet anyway," April Morgan said. "I know she would want her privacy and support from people."

Privacy the family is guarding tightly this afternoon.

The boy's mother, Chantal Thompson is not charged and there's no sign she was in any way involved in her son's death.

The boy's god father says Thompson's kids are her life.

"She is an excellent and wonderful mother. She loved her son and daughter," the boy's god gather said. "She would do nothing, what so ever, to hurt any of her children."

A preliminary autopsy found Amir died of spinal cord injuries and internal bleeding.

Something neighbors find hard to hear.

"That's crazy. How does that happen," neighbor Clint McClaren said. "Two years old? How can you harm a kid like that?"

Starks' bail set at 500,000 dollars.

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