RAY BROOK, N.Y. — A mother and her boyfriend have been arrested on charges of negligent homicide after the woman’s 2-year-old son died this summer after getting his head caught in a notch in a sheet of plywood that kept him in a bedroom of his upstate New York home, police said.

The child, Ellyah J. Elvidge, likely died of asphyxiation, police say. His mother, Patricia A. Giddings, and her then-boyfriend, Brandon Bushey, were arrested last week in the toddler’s Aug. 9 death.

“According to the two suspects, when they found him, his head was positioned in that notch,” State Police Troop B Bureau of Criminal Investigation Capt. Robert LaFountain said.

The plywood, about 4 1/2 feet high, was permanently attached to the door frame of the small bedroom in the house in AuSable Forks, New York, he said; Ellyah would be lifted over it when he was taken from the room. The child was tall enough to look through a hole in the plywood, the captain said.

LaFountain wouldn’t go into detail about the space, saying only: “The living conditions were deplorable.”

Giddings and Bushey were at home that night, and both took Ellyah to Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Emergency Department in Plattsburgh, New York, after finding him unresponsive, LaFountain said.

He wouldn’t say whether the toddler was already dead when they reached CVPH.

“He was pronounced deceased at the hospital,” LaFountain said.

Staff notified police that a child had died.

State Police await official results of an autopsy performed by Dr. Michael Sikirica at Albany Medical Center, but investigation supports asphyxiation, LaFountain said.

Largely figuring in that investigation have been Clinton County Child Protective Services and Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie and his staff, LaFountain said.

Giddings, 21, was arrested and charged Dec. 13. She has remained in Clinton County Jail since then, with bail set at $50,000, and has an appearance in Black Brook Town Court scheduled for 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Bushey, 24, who had moved to New Jersey after Ellyah’s death, was interviewed by New York State Police there last week and was arrested on a warrant last Friday.

Now incarcerated in Union County Jail, he awaits court action on extradition to Clinton County.

LaFountain said Bushey’s next court date will be sometime after Jan. 1.

Since criminally negligent homicide is a felony, LaFountain said, “I would anticipate the case would be submitted to a (Clinton County) grand jury, potentially on other charges as well.”

Wylie didn’t comment on what those other charges might be or any other facet of the investigation.

His office, he said, “is preparing the case for prosecution, and therefore we are unable to comment on the particulars of the investigation and prosecution.”

Suzanne Moore is the News Editor for the Plattsburgh, New York Press Republic.