The horror was unimaginable as EMS technicians responded to a 911 call no one ever wants to receive — a report of an unconscious child. When they arrived at the squalid Harlem apartment, they found an emaciated 4-year-old boy who weighed barely 19 pounds unresponsive and barely breathing. Nearby were his three older siblings, also reduced to nothing more than skin and bones. And in the kitchen, another heartbreaking sight: Cabinets filled with food, but secured with child-proof locks — and a stocked refrigerator turned toward the wall so the children couldn’t open it. This was the horrific homestead where the short and tragic life of Jahmeik Modlin played out and ended in tears. The malnourished child died abused and neglected in a local hospital hours after falling unconscious last Sunday night. Prosecutors said his parents failed to feed their family, and let their youngest boy waste away and die even though there was plenty of food on hand — a sadistic scenario that left neighbors, and the Harlem community at large, reeling. Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily NewsMemorial outside Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd near W. 145th Street, where the children languished in a hellhole, according to authorities. “I think she should go to prison because that’s like a horrible thing,” said a 27-year-old woman who lived on the same stretch of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd near W. 145th St., where the children languished in a hellhole, according to authorities. “They were innocent lives. They didn’t ask to come into this world. If you didn’t want your kids or you weren’t able to maintain them, give them to family, take them to the hospital, anything, you know? It’s crazy. It’s sad.” On Saturday, Jahmeik’s inconsolable paternal grandmother broke down in tears as she and the Rev. Al Sharpton laid a white and blue cross-shaped wreath next to a makeshift memorial filled with small teddy bears, a Minnie Mouse doll, votive candles and heartfelt messages outside the child’s home. “You are in God’s hands now,” a handwritten note said. “No more suffering, no hurt, no pain.” The grandmother sobbed into Shapton’s chest as he embraced her with one arm, holding the shaking woman’s hand with the other. As the small group of mourners returned to the National Action Network’s House of Justice, which was only a short walk away, the grandmother broke down in tears again and was so wracked with grief that she needed to sit on a nearby stoop to regain her composure. The woman, who was only identified as Miss Jones, continued to cry as a van showed up to take her and her relatives the rest of the way. Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily NewsJahmeik Modlin’s grandmother breaks down in tears at a memorial for the dead boy. Her son, Laron Modlin, was arrested Wednesday and charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child after Jahmeik died at Harlem Hospital. Modlin, 25, is the biological father of Jahmeik and two of the surviving children. Modlin was arrested after evading authorities for two days, cops said. Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, the mother accused of one of the city’s most shocking cases of child abuse and neglect, was arrested and charged with similar crimes on Monday. When questioned, Modlin said he must not have noticed Jahmeik’s condition because “he often plays video games or was on his phone,” according to court papers. Modlin’s mother is ready to take care of the surviving children once they’re cleared by doctors, according to Stephanie McGraw, founder of the We All Really Matter, a local nonprofit helping domestic violence victims. “She is fully available and ready and able and healthy, mentally, physically and emotionally, to take her three remaining grandchildren,”  McGraw said outside the House of Justice. “One had to go, but there’s three more right here, and they will live. “That baby’s life will not be in vain,” McGraw said. “He saved his other three siblings.” Sharpton offered to officiate Jahmeik’s funeral if his grandmother didn’t have a preacher available to pray over the child’s body. “Jahmeik is a wake-up call to this city, and we ought not let this happen,” he said, adding that the child’s death “happened right down the block” from his offices. “We can’t have a House of Justice and ignore a 4-year-old kid starving to death right here in our neighborhood,” he said. “If we are a community, we need to embrace each other in our pain and use our pain to help stop the pain from somebody else. “I don’t know what happened, but I know this young boy did not deserve to starve to death,” Sharpton said. Modlin’s mental illness, which his lawyer brought up at his arraignment, may have played a role in the child’s death, Sharpton added. “There should have been some help for him,” Sharpton told Miss Jones. “And all of us should stand with you to say that what happened to Jahmeik should not ever happen, and your son should not be caught [in it] later.” Prosecutors at Modlin’s arraignment described a house of horrors where feces lined the walls in one of the rooms. The boy also had feces matted in his hair, they said. Laron Modlin, 25, is walked into his arraignment for the death of his son, Jahmeik Modlin, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News) The court proceeding revealed the even more disturbing detail about locked kitchen cabinets and a refrigerator turned toward the wall so the children couldn’t get to any food. The 27-year-old neighbor bitterly recalled how the boy’s mother, who would often sit outside the building snacking and smoking small cigars, didn’t seem to be missing any meals. “She’d sit on the steps [outside the building] smoking Black & Milds,” the woman said. “It’s crazy because why are you eating and you can’t feed your kids?  Always she’d be sitting right here on the stoop. She would be eating and drinking. Who knows what was going on? There’s still no excuse for what she did to her kids.” Authorities said Jahmeik’s weight of 19 pounds was 3 pounds less than when he and his siblings were last examined by a doctor in 2022 — and less than half the normal weight of a 4-year-old child. He was also suffering from hypothermia and a case of eczema on his chest that was so severe EMTs and NYPD officers on the scene initially thought it was burn marks, officials said. Except for being alive, the other children weren’t much better off. Jahmeik’s three young siblings, ages 5, 6 and 7, were suffering from malnutrition as well, officials said. They are currently hospitalized and under the care of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, and are unable to eat solid food. Jahmeik was so desperate for food that he ate his own vomit, prosecutors said. Oct. 15, 2024: Child death tragedyNew York Daily NewsFront page of the New York Daily News for Oct. 15, 2024. “I’m a mother, you know what I’m saying?” said Audrey Lamar, 59, who was on her way to buy a candle to add to the makeshift memorial for Jahmeik that popped up outside the building. “It wasn’t just a little boy that died. He had siblings and the siblings were in the household too. And they were all malnutritioned. I heard people in the neighborhood, like they used to always see her sitting down on the steps eating food. So how dare you eat food and not feed your children? I really can’t fathom that.” Lamar has seen hard times, and was a single mother on welfare, she said. “People go through things,” she said. “But these kids are not going to school, they’re not getting medical treatment. You know what I’m saying? If you can’t get up in whatever condition you are and make sure your child eats and make sure your child go to school, then something is wrong.” A 60-year-old neighbor who lives on the same floor as the family said she saw Ragsdale occasionally but she never even knew there were kids in the apartment. “We never saw the children,” the neighbor said. “ We don’t hear them crying, laughing. It’s strange.” ACS had visited the home before to investigate concerns about malnutrition, but investigators did not substantiate the allegation, a law enforcement source said. The child’s death sparked a preliminary review by the city’s Department of Investigation of ACS’ handling of the child’s case, which may lead to a full probe, a spokesperson told the Daily News. “You know the whole community is hurting,” said Robert Rice, an NYPD chaplain who stopped by to check on the residents Friday. “That’s something that is happening now. A lot of people are trying to make sense of this situation.”