Cops recently identified a woman found floating in the Bay Ridge Channel back in March as an South Ozone Park resident connected to a 2012 kidnapping case in Queens.
Police say that at 7:01 a.m. on March 16, officers from the 72nd Precinct responded to a 911 call regarding a woman floating in the channel off of 56th Street. Upon their arrival, officers found 47-year-old Leila Rajnarine of 132nd Street in South Ozone Park unconscious and unresponsive in the water.
The NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit pulled Rajnarine’s body from the water at Pier 4. EMS rushed to the location and declared Rajnarine dead at the scene. The investigation into her death is ongoing.
Police confirmed that in 2012, Rajnarine was arrested for kidnapping her daughter from her foster mother. On March 14, 2012, Rajnarine – who did not have custody of her daughter at this time – accompanied her infant daughter and the foster mother to Mount Sinai Queens Hospital’s pediatric center for the child’s check-up.
When the doctor and foster mother were speaking in another room, Rajnarine allegedly took the child and fled the hospital.
Rajnarine was found the next day with her daughter in a livery cab 133rd Street and 101st Avenue in Jamaica. The child was found in stable condition and Rajnarine was taken into custody.
