Moshe Ehrlich, a 35-year-old student, described a hectic morning on the day he forgot his infant son was in the minivan while he went to class. Ehrlich told police he had a system to remind himself that the baby was in the car, but it failed on this occasion. The baby was left in the minivan for approximately 2.5 hours, with the internal temperature of the vehicle reaching 96.2 degrees. Ehrlich was charged with second-degree endangering the welfare of a child.

Moshe Ehrlich told police he had long feared forgetting and leaving one of his six children in the car before precisely that happened last month, resulting in the death of his four-month-old son in the family minivan, according to a court record.

Ehrlich, 35, a student at a local religious school, described a disrupted and hurried morning on March 18, before he went to his yeshiva to begin his studies for the day.

Details about the circumstances surrounding the baby’s last hours were outlined in an affidavit of probable cause that led to Ehrlich’s arrest on a charge of child endangerment two days later on March 20.

The child, whose name was redacted in the charging documents requested by the Asbury Park Press under the state’s Open Public Records Act, had been left in the car for about 2½-hours while Ehrlich was in the school on Princeton Avenue, according to those same documents.

The temperature inside the car was recorded at 96.2 degrees at 3:45 p.m. that date, even though the air temperature outside in Lakewood was 67.8 degrees, the affidavit stated.

Ehrlich told investigators that leaving his child in the vehicle had always been a concern. He said he had acquired several methods to remind him that the baby was in the car. One such method included placing his hat on the front passenger seat while he was driving. On this occasion, doing so made no difference, he said, according to the affidavit.

Faiga Ehrlich, Ehrlich’s wife and the mother of the victim, told police that her husband — who was normally responsible for dropping off three of their children each morning at school or at a sitter’s — had been tasked on that day with chauffeuring four of the children after their six-year-old missed the school bus, the affidavit states.

Mrs. Ehrlich left for work at 9:30 a.m. while her husband was getting two of their children — ages 4 and 2 — dressed and ready for daycare. He then got them, the six-year-old and the baby into the family’s Toyota Sienna.

The baby is normally dropped off at the sitter’s house first, but when Ehrlich reached that destination, he discovered he had forgotten the infant’s milk. Before returning home to retrieve the milk, he decided to drop off the 4-and-2-year-olds at daycare and the 6-year-old at school.

He then returned home, ran inside, fetched the milk and some other things he needed, and returned to the car. But instead of driving back to the sitter’s house, he drove to a religious school he attends on Princeton Avenue, forgetting to drop off the baby, according to the criminal complaint.

He parked on 5th Street about 11 a.m. and went into the yeshiva. Around 1:30 p.m., someone from the school notified him that he had a phone call on a dedicated office line for family emergencies.

Police officers watch as a minivan is loaded onto a flatbed tow truck on 5th Street between Monmouth and Princeton Avenues in Lakewood Tuesday afternoon, March 18, 2025. Earlier in the afternoon a child was reportedly found unresponsive in the vehicle.

Earlier at 12:18 p.m., Esther Kitay, the babysitter, had texted Faiga Ehrlich to find out what had happened since Moshe Ehrlich had never showed up with the baby that morning.

However, Faiga Ehrlich didn’t see the text message until 1:30. When she did, she immediately called her husband on his phone but he didn’t answer and so she next tried the school’s emergency line.

Back at the school, Moshe Ehrlich was on his way to take the emergency call when he was intercepted by Kitay’s 19-year-old son, Zevi, who had come looking for him inside the school.

“Where is your baby?” he asked Ehrlich.

Ehrlich would tell police that he gathered his belongings and ran out to his car. When he got to the vehicle, he removed his baby and called Hatzolah of Central Jersey, the first aid and ambulance service in Lakewood.

As the baby was taken to Monmouth Medical Center, Southern Campus on Route 9, Ehrlich spoke to his wife and they both agreed to pray. The baby would be pronounced dead at 2:40 p.m. that Tuesday.

Lakewood Patrolman John T. Ganley arrived at the hospital the same time as the ambulance and could see several EMTs performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the infant as they entered the emergency room.

Ganley would be joined by Detective Joseph Mitchell from the Major Crime Unit of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office during an interview with the parents, who met with the officers with their attorney, Yosef Jacobwitz.

Faiga Ehrlich would tell investigators that their baby had last been at the doctor two days earlier on the previous Sunday, where he was given “a clean bill of health,” according to her statement.

Jacobwitz would ask Mitchell if a “virtual autopsy” could be performed “in a more expedited fashion” on the infant, rather than a full, post-mortem autopsy, if the parents agreed to stipulate that the child’s death was caused by having been left in the minivan. A virtual autopsy is a non-invasive procedure that allows for remains to be studied via a CAT scan or MRI that results in a three-dimensional imaging of the body’s internal structure.

At that time, a major criminal investigation was underway into the boy’s death. A search warrant had been requested for the vehicle and Moshe Ehrlich’s phone, which brought out detectives from the Crime Scene Investigations Division of the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office.

A virtual autopsy was conducted about 6:30 that night, at which point a determination was made that a full post-mortem autopsy was necessary for the investigation. The latter procedure was completed at Community Medical Center in Toms River at 10 a.m. the following day.

There did not appear to be any trauma to the baby’s body and a cause of death could not be determined until “cultures” taken could be tested, all according to the affidavit.

“I am currently waiting on those results,” Ganley said in his report. “At that time, we concluded the autopsy.”

That same day, Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Mara Brater was presented with the initial report of the incident, leading her to authorize a charge of second degree endangering the welfare of a child against Moshe Ehrlich.

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