Award-winning novelist Paul Auster's son has been arrested on charges of manslaughter following the drug overdose death of his 10-month-old daughter. Daniel Auster, 44, was arrested by the New York Police Department (NYPD) admitted to ingesting his daughter Ruby heroin and fentanyl that eventually killed her.
The revelations were made following the autopsy report of his daughter. Daniel Auster also admitted to authorities that he kept "glassine packets of heroin" in his bathroom. He now faces charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and child endangerment in connection with Ruby death.
Killing His Own Daughter
On the afternoon of November 1, Daniel Auster was babysitting his the 10-month-old Ruby when paramedics responded to a 911 call from his Brooklyn home, authorities said. According to local media, emergency personnel responding to her home discovered her unresponsive and brought her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
An autopsy reported has now revealed that the toddler had an overdose of fentanyl and heroin, which Auster has admitted to giving her. A police official said on Saturday that Daniel Auster didn't know how Ruby got the medications into her system.
Daniel Auster was detained and accused with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide on Friday night, according to police. On Saturday, he was scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
According to Assistant DA Tien Tran, who addressed at Daniel's arraignment in Brooklyn on Sunday, Daniel admitted that he had been using heroin that day and gave the infant the therapy "in case I f**ked up."
Ruby was discovered with an astounding amount of fentanyl and heroin in her system, according to Tran, though investigators have yet to figure out how they got into her system. Daniel Auster also told officials that he had "glassine packets of heroin" stashed in his bathroom.
His Drug-Related Problems
Daniel Auster is currently awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court. His Instagram profile is full of photos of his kid and her mother, and he can be seen posing with her or cradling her in several of them.
However, he now is charged in his daughter's death. This, also, isn't the first time that he has run into trouble with the law. According to The New Yorker, Daniel Auster began going to clubs in New York City during his adolescent years and became extensively entangled with drugs.
In 1996, when he was 18 years old, Daniel Auster was present in the flat when a drug dealer named Andre 'Angel' Melendez was famously killed by Club Kid Killer' Michael Alig, a former nightclub promoter, and his roommate, Robert Riggs. In exchange for his silence, Daniel was paid $3,000 of Melendez's money.
He later admitted to having stolen stuff and was sentenced to five years of probation.
Daniel's father, Paul Auster, wrote "The New York Trilogy," "The Book of Illusions," and "Moon Palace." Daniel's mother, Paul Auster's first wife, is writer Lydia Davis. The couple divorced in 1978.
In 1978, Paul Auster married Siri Hustvedt, a novelist and essayist from Minnesota. "The Blindfold," "The Enchantment of Lily Dahl," and "What I Loved," published in 2003, are among her best-known works.
Paul Auster has received various international awards, including being named to the Booker Prize shortlist and being elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. According to the Guardian in 2006, both Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt have produced fiction with characters based on or influenced by their problems with Daniel.
