A Long Island mother is facing charges after her 18-month-old son choked to death from a popcorn kernel that got stuck in his throat, while she was allegedly binge drinking in the next room.<\/p>\n
Olivia Bithorn showed signs of heartbreak in court on Monday as she faced a Nassau County judge. She was charged with manslaughter in the choking death of her toddler son, Like.<\/p>\n
“Her son was blue and cold to the touch,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly, fighting back emotions.<\/p>\n
The boy died in April at Bithorn’s apartment in Merrick, according to the DA. The 36-year-old had separated from her husband of three years as she battled her alcoholism. Her son and daughter were staying over for an unsupervised visit.<\/p>\n
During the children’s weekend stay, prosecutors alleged Bithorn relapsed. An empty bottle of vodka was found in her bathroom.<\/p>\n
In the next room, popcorn kernels littered the floor, near her kids’ toys. The district attorney said Bithorn had left the unpopped kernels for her children to eat.<\/p>\n
With the mom allegedly drunk in the bathroom, young Luke choked to death on those kernels, with his 3-year-old sister looking on.<\/p>\n
“Sadly, she was the one who apparently actually went to get her mom to say ‘Something’s wrong with my brother,” Donnelly said.<\/p>\n
The judge on Monday ordered Bithorn held on $500,000 bond. She had been in rehab since her son’s death, but it was unclear if that would continue while she was being held in custody.<\/p>\n
Bithorn’s husband offered no comment as he left court. His estranged wife, prosecutors said, has a history of binge drinking. In one case from Aug. 2025, she went missing for three days.<\/p>\n
The DA said her husband believed she was sober when he allowed the children to make that deadly visit in April.<\/p>\n
“Everyone in her life had basically written her off except her husband, who was trying to make sure she has a place to live and was staying sober,” Donnelly said.<\/p>\n
Attorney information for Bithorn was not immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Long Island mother is facing charges after her 18-month-old son choked to death from a popcorn kernel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3294,776,774,9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-284061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-long-island","tag-nassau-county","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}