Authorities brought felony charges against the mother and stepfather of a 9-year-old deaf and blind girl Tuesday, two days after she fell to her death from the family’s third-floor apartment in Lincoln Square.
Sundas Balwa, 33, and Shakir Alshahien, 37, each face one count of felony endangerment of a child’s life in the death of Barwin Husan. Balwa, the child’s mother, also faces a felony count of criminal negligence of a disabled person.
Police said investigators established that Balwa and Alshahien left the child alone while they went out. She managed to climb out of a window, falling about 30 feet to the pavement below.
More Top Picks Hemiplegic Migraine Warning Signs To Know
Detectives also say the girl may have been tied to a radiator with the belt of a terry cloth robe, police spokesman Pat Camden said.
Prosecutors decided not to pursue murder charges because there wasn’t evidence the couple intended to harm the girl, Camden said.
“We couldn’t get murder. [If] you tie the baby up to the radiator, you don’t intend for her to go out the window,” he said. “Even if she wasn’t tied up, they weren’t in the apartment when she went out the window.”
An autopsy was performed Tuesday, but the cause of Barwin’s death will remain open until a forensic pathologist confers with police Wednesday, a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Neighbors said they complained once to Alshahien that Barwin was often left alone.
Hussam Al-Shimari, who found the girl clinging to life after her fall, said he thought the charges were appropriate.
But those who knew Balwa described her as a loving mother who always kept her daughter clean and well-dressed.
Just last week Balwa enrolled Barwin in the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind and for three months earlier this year saw to it that the severely disabled child was home-schooled.
Kathleen Danno, a special needs teacher at Farnsworth Elementary School, taught Barwin from January through March and said Balwa was always very good to the girl.
“She wanted [Barwin] to learn,” Danno said. “If she had another appointment, she would call me every time, and she always tried to feed me. It was a very warm home.”
The apartment, in the 2600 block of West Farragut Avenue, was meticulously kept and Barwin’s mother was always present during lessons, she added.
Jassim Alkhataji, a longtime friend of Alshahien who attended the couple’s wedding in Syria, said the two took good care of Barwin.
When they went out, “they normally took her with them,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t have allowed his friend to neglect the girl.
Barwin’s violent death marked the end of a life filled with hardships.
As a toddler, she was forced with her family, including her natural father, into an Iraqi prison, Danno said.
Danno said she believed Barwin suffered serious physical and emotional trauma that contributed to her disabilities.
Despite all her difficulties, Barwin was a good child with a strong spirit, Danno said.
She loved to dance to the vibrations of children’s songs that rattled through the apartment floor. When the music stopped, the tiny girl would stop too and quietly return to her lessons, learning to tell textures apart and sorting different shapes, Danno said.