Retired NYPD detective, mom of murdered newborn reunite on anniversary of baby’s death
There are some cases that stick with a detective long after they leave the job.
For retired NYPD Det. Christine Casilla, the brutal October 2014 murder of a 3-month-old newborn in the Bronx – by a caregiver who slammed the baby boy’s head against a bedpost twice – is the case that still haunts her.
“It was horrible,” Casilla, now 49, told The Post. “It broke my heart.”
Mom Barbara Greer with her son Joemill, who was murdered by a caretaker in 2014. Courtesy of Christine Casilla
Casilla was one of the first to respond to a call of a baby at Presbyterian Hospital barely breathing.
“The baby had a skull fracture from one side of the ear to the other,” said Casilla, who retired in 2020 and lives in Orange County. “He was on life support for a little while.”
“After a while, it was determined there was no brain activity.”
The same type of baby blanket Joemill was swaddled in the night he was beaten to death. Courtesy of Christine Casilla
The baby, Joemill, was taken off life support on Nov. 5, 2014.
“The day they pulled him off life support the mom gave me a little Ziploc bag with a little piece of his hair in it,” Casilla recalled.
Since then, Casilla and the mom, Barbara Greer, have kept in touch. At one point, Greer asked Casilla if she could get her the blanket her baby was swaddled in – but the detective couldn’t find it.
When they met Oct. 27, on the ninth anniversary of Joemill’s tragic beating, at the cemetery where the boy is buried, Casilla gave her a replica of the blanket she had found on eBay.
Mom Barbara Greer with her 3-month-old son Joemill. Courtesy of Christine Casilla
“I wasn’t expecting something like that,” Greer said. “I was just expecting to see her. I went all the way to the ground and she went with me.”
“We were both crying.”
Greer had recently moved to the Big Apple in 2014 from Puerto Rico when she told Casilla she had to head to work and was expecting her then-boyfriend’s sister to watch Joemill.
But the sister called and asked Greer if it was OK if her husband watched the infant instead.
The mom felt she didn’t have any other option.
She was new to the city and needed her factory job to keep the one-bedroom apartment where she lived with her boyfriend, who was the baby’s dad, and her daughter.
“When I got home, unfortunately, my son was laid out on my bed,” the mom told The Post, vividly recalling the unimaginable tragedy like it was yesterday.
“He said, ‘I was burping him and he hit the head on one of the bed posts,’” Greer tearfully recalled. “And then he said, ‘He also hit the other side of his head.’ My son was covered up, like he didn’t want us to see what was done.”
Retired NYPD Det. Christine Casilla was one of the first to respond to a call of a baby at Presbyterian Hospital barely breathing. Courtesy of Christine Casilla
The mom pulled the cover off and saw Joemill’s face and body had turned a shade of blue. She immediately jumped in her car and rushed the newborn to the hospital.
Cops who arrived at the hospital, including Casilla, arrested Luis Cartagena, who was responsible for watching the baby.
Greer said she broke down crying that night when she met Casilla, who offered the grieving mom heartfelt words of compassion.
“When I saw her the first time, I just started crying,” Greer, now 42, said.
Cartagena’s story kept changing as cops pressed him for answers, Casilla said, so she went into sleuth mode, watching hours of surveillance footage from the mom’s building.
The retired NYPD detective gifted Greer a replica of the baby’s blanket. Courtesy of Christine Casilla
“[Cartagena] said he didn’t know what happened,” Casilla recalled. “I watched eight or nine hours of video and nobody went into the apartment. He never came out.”
He eventually copped to the crime, pleading guilty to second-degree attempted murder. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Cartagena, now 42, is doing time at Eastern Correctional Facility in Ulster County with a release date of 2030, state records show.
“I wish it was longer,” Casilla said about the sentence. “This was evil. The baby had a skull fracture from one side of the ear to the other.”
Today, Greer lives in Massachusetts and has a 6-year-old son. Her daughter is an adult.
“My purpose with telling this is that I want other moms to follow their instincts,” Greer told The Post, breaking down as she spoke. “If you feel that you don’t want to go to work or you don’t trust that person — do what you’ve got to do, stay home.”
“I’ll live with this forever.”
