Julia Had Just Celebrated Her First Halloween. Days Later, Her Family Lost Her.

Just days before Julia Cante Wilcox-Polanco died, her parents celebrated a first with her. Their two-year-old daughter was old enough to join in Halloween, and the family finally got to share the holiday with her. It was the kind of milestone parents expect to look back on the following year, when their child is a little taller and has an opinion about what to wear. For Chayanne Polanco and Thessa Wilcox, that first Halloween is now one of their last memories of life with Julia.

On Tuesday night, November 3, 2026, Julia fell from a fifth-floor window in her family’s apartment building in Mott Haven, a neighborhood in the Bronx. Emergency responders arrived late that evening and found her unconscious and unresponsive. She was rushed to Harlem Hospital in critical condition, but she died from her injuries. Police said they did not suspect criminal activity in connection with the fall.

Her parents had waited so long to meet Julia, and they had only two years to watch her grow.

The little girl who always wanted to be picked up

Julia’s parents told WABC that she came into their lives after a miscarriage and several attempts to have a child. Her father called her his miracle child. When he talked about her after the fall, he remembered how much energy she had. She would run back and forth through the apartment, find things to climb, and then turn to him, lift her arms, and ask for “uppies.” The small word captured a familiar exchange between a toddler who wanted to see a little higher and the dad she expected to lift her.

Polanco remembered holding Julia earlier that Tuesday, when he went to vote. At the time, it was an ordinary part of the day, one of the many times he had carried his daughter. At the hospital that night, he wanted to hold her again. When he later recounted what happened, that earlier moment was still clear in his mind. He knew exactly when he had last had her in his arms.

For Wilcox, the days afterward brought a different kind of disbelief. She told WABC she had been too sad to get out of bed and was struggling to believe Julia was gone. In the same interview, the parents talked about how long they had hoped for a child. That history gives their account of Halloween its tenderness. They had finally reached the part of parenthood where they could introduce Julia to traditions and see what she made of them. They were just beginning to discover which things she would want to do again.

What happened at the apartment window

The family lived on the top floor of an apartment building on East 138th Street. Local reporting, citing police sources, said Julia apparently pushed aside a divider beside a window air conditioner and fell through the resulting gap. Polanco told reporters she generally ran past that area and that he had never seen her show that kind of interest in the divider before. Her parents said the window lacked a protective guard. The exact sequence of the fall has been described through accounts from the family and sources familiar with the investigation.

Polanco was away from the apartment when Julia fell. He told WABC that he received a call about what had happened while heading home. At first, he thought the caller had made a mistake. As he recalled it, the person on the other end kept insisting that he go to Harlem Hospital. The trip took him from the confusion of that first call to the reality of seeing his daughter there. In his interview afterward, he returned to the simplest thing he wanted in that room: to pick her up.

One of her father’s clearest memories from that day was an ordinary moment when he still had Julia in his arms.

The question her parents want other families to ask

In the aftermath, Julia’s parents urged other families to pay closer attention to their windows. The reported gap beside the air conditioner is an important detail because a window can look filled from across a room while still having an opening at the side. New York City’s Health Department says ordinary screens cannot serve as window guards and that window air conditioners must be securely installed. The city updated its window safety rules effective January 1, 2026, including requirements for the installation and removal of window air conditioners.

The Health Department says approved guards are required in qualifying apartments in buildings with at least three units when a child age 10 or younger lives there. It tells tenants who need guards to contact their landlord and to call 311 if the problem goes unresolved. For a family looking around its own apartment after hearing Julia’s story, the city’s guidance addresses a concrete question: What is actually securing each window a child can reach, including one partly occupied by an air conditioner?

Remembering Julia

Neighbors made a memorial behind the building where Julia fell. It gave people who lived nearby a place to express their sympathy for a family facing a loss that was hard to put into words. Her parents spoke publicly while that loss was still new. Alongside their concern about windows, they asked other parents to hold their children close and tell them they love them. Their words came from two people who had spent years hoping to become parents and who had just begun collecting the family memories they thought they would have a lifetime to make.

Julia deserved more Halloweens, more chances to ask for “uppies,” and all the years her parents hoped to share with her.

The window is where the public account of Julia’s death begins. Her father’s account of her life begins somewhere else, with a little girl who wanted to run around as soon as she woke up and knew just how to ask him to pick her up. Her mother remembers the joy Julia brought after the long wait to have her. Between those memories is a picture of a child who was curious, energetic, and loved. As her family grieves, may they have people beside them who will listen when they want to talk about Julia, and who will remember to ask about the little girl whose first Halloween meant so much to them.