Suffolk County police arrested a woman May 10 who allegedly attempted to murder her newborn baby earlier this year.
Felicia Squillace gave birth at her home in Coram April 27 at approximately 1:30 p.m. The mother then allegedly wrapped the baby boy in a plastic bag and attempted to put the baby in a garbage bin outside. Two residents of the home heard the baby cry, took the bag from the mother, removed the baby and called police.
Following the birth, Squillace was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital for medical treatment and evaluation. She was subsequently transferred to Brunswick Hospital in Amityville where upon her release she was arrested by detectives from the special victim’s section.
The baby was transported to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson for evaluation and has since been released to foster care.
Squillace, 26, was be held overnight at the 4th Precinct and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip on May 11. Attorney information was not immediately available.
She had been married before in a traditional Jewish arranged marriage to her father’s business acquaintance.He told his daughter, “Ida, this is Max.He will be your husband.” She had two children with her husband, my half-brother Ben and my half-sister Sadie. The marriage failed and eventually they separated, and the children were placed in a Hebrew orphan asylum in New York City.
My mother tried to get her children back, but when she stormed the desk of a charity worker she was instead committed as insane to Pilgrim State Hospital. After three months she was released, and one winter day in Manhattan as she sold key rings on the streets, she tried to warm up in a hotel lobby. The doorman told her to warm up downstairs in the employee’s room. There she met my father, a Swedish-born, lapsed Lutheran,merchant mariner who settled in New York City. He took her to dinner and they began a courtship.
Max obtained a divorce and my parents were married in New Jersey. A year later, my brother Roland was born and a year and a half later, in 1931, I was born.
I began to realize my mother was different when I was about 5 years old.She would get hysterical. She had fights with our father. When she got angry at our behavior, she would smash dishes on the floor and we would scoot under the bed. I got used to meals left half-eaten at restaurants or movies whose ending I did not get to see when she would leave, because she thought people were staring at her or talking about her.
But I also realized she was very protective. My brother was born with a congenital heart condition. She made sure he did not exert himself and took us to the parks to play rather than to play with neighborhood children. She took us to art shops and museums, or cooled us off during heat waves by going back and forth on the Staten Island Ferry.
She took us to bookstores and shared with our father, an elevator operator, the importance of learning and the arts.Every day she would take her violin and play for us for an hour, especially the music of Stephen Foster, Fritz Kreisler and other light classical selections. When we were teenagers, she began going out in the evening and playing as a street musician.
I think my father stayed in a bad marriage because he did not want to see his two children also ending up in an orphan asylum or foster home.
I learned from my mother that she was not insane all the time. She had her good days and I never doubted her love for us. She encouraged our efforts at art and praised our passion for reading. I also admired her ability to do a lot with very little money.
She liked to visit her daughter in California and would get a one-way ticket by train,get off during a rest stop, play her violin for donations from passengers and continue on until she got to California. She only took a sneaker bag for her clothes and her violin case as luggage. It taught me how creative I could be when I lacked the traditional ways to do things.
When I was at Tougaloo College teaching in an all-black school, I found the library had no books or journals on human genetics. So I called the medical school in Jackson, Mississippi, and arranged to bring four students at a time in my car to its library. I taught the students how to use the “Index Medicus” to select articles. We read together taking notes at the library table.I learned about my students’ lives during the car trip to or back from the library.
I would not have improvised had it not been what I learned from my mother.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
Kollin McDonald, fourth from left in top row with trophy, and his teammates and coaches after the game against Longwood on Friday, where he received the game ball and MVP trophy. Photo from Tom Femminella
Sometimes it’s not the wins or losses that matter most in a game, it’s the bonds formed when playing.
For Ward Melville senior Kollin McDonald, he realized how strong that bond was with his basketball teammates after the loss of his mother last week.
The guard darted to the hospital last Monday after receiving a text message that his mother was rushed there. Mary McDonald had cancer for seven years, starting with breast cancer, and after she was in remission was told it had come back more aggressively, and spread throughout her body.
Kollin McDonald and his mother Mary, while pumpkin picking this year. Photo from Kollin McDonald
The team attended the wake, and head coach Tom Femminella said despite it being an emotional evening, he thought it made it a little easier for his athlete to have his team’s support.
“As a coach in any sport you press the kids on family — family is important,” he said. “When you’re actually there and someone needs you when the chips aredown, it shows a lot of resolve that will hopefully transfer onto the court and will make these kids closer for the season and hopefully for the rest of their lives.”
Femminella invited McDonald’s close friend and teammate Chris Woods to ask McDonald if he would play as a starter in Friday’s game — the same day as his mother’s funeral.
“For him it was the most exciting news,” Woods said. “His family was all excited once they heard too, and they came after the funeral to the game.”
Being that McDonald is not normally a starter, it was a memorable moment for him walking out on the court.
“It was honestly an honor to be asked to play ” McDonald said. “It was more of a ‘getting past and moving on’ thing because once I got asked, I was very emotional, but I knew at that point that we were a strong team and that they had my back with anything.”
McDonald said the memories of his mother and thinking about her every day is what gets him through, but it is also the love from his coach and teammates, and it showed that night on the court.
The senior started off the evening with two rebounds in a 50-40 win over Longwood, and it ignited the team.
“Those were probably the two most aggressive rebounds I’ve ever had — ever, in any game I’ve ever played,” he said with a laugh. “It was very emotional watching the tape afterward because I knew [those rebounds] were for my mom, and it was a great feeling.”
Kollin McDonald and his mother Mary after his sixth-grade graduation. Photo from Kollin McDonald
The team wore pink socks in support of breast cancer awareness to the game and will continue to wear them through the rest of the season, Femminella said, adding that he will also be wearing special sneakers to support his player.
“It was more important that he was getting back to a little bit of normalcy,” Femminella said. “And then we brought him the trophy and the game ball, and he got the MVP [title] because he was the MVP. He inspired the rest of the kids. If he can be there and he can show this effort and be strong, why can’t they?”
Woods also said it was great to see his friend and teammate in high spirits.
“He had a big smile on his face and was able to go out there and start the game,” Woods said, adding that he and his teammates were also grinning from ear-to-ear and leaping off the bench when McDonald scored. “It helped him get his mind off of things to get him out there. It was the best feeling for all of us when he got those rebounds — he played his heart out.”
McDonald said it’s meant everything to have his school’s support.
“Having a group of guys to talk to at any point and any time in my life,” he said, “it’s a great feeling.”
McDonald thanked his teammates and coaches for their support after what he said is his most memorable game , adding that he thought wearing the pink socks for the rest of the season is a nice way for them to support him and his family for the remainder of the year.
“We’re taking this tough event as a bonding moment for all of us,” Woods said. “I think Kollin is going through a tough time, but the pink socks represent how we’ve all become brothers, and we’re all going to be there for each other no matter what happens.”
Suffolk County police arrested a woman May 10 who allegedly attempted to murder her newborn baby earlier this year.
