Inset, left to right: Tarvis T. Phenix Jr.’s 3-year-old son, known by family members as “T-3” (GoFundMe) and Tarvis T. Phenix Jr. (STMPD). Background: The apartment building where Phenix’s son fell to his death (Google Maps).
A 26-year-old Missouri man is facing criminal charges after he allegedly left his 3-year-old son home alone in his apartment where the child — known to family as “T-3” — wandered into a hallway and fell to his death from an open window on the 11th floor.
Tarvis T. Phenix Jr. was arrested and charged with one count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child resulting in death in connection with the incident that took place earlier this month in St. Louis, court records show.
According to a probable cause affidavit, officers with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department responded to an apartment in the 4400 block of Forest Park Ave. in the early morning hours of April 10 regarding a report of a missing child. Phenix, who placed the call, told police his young son had disappeared. Officers soon located the boy dead “outside the back of the apartment, having fallen to the pavement.”
Surveillance footage reviewed by investigators captured the moments leading up to the child’s death.
Police say Phenix left the 11th-floor apartment at 11:52 p.m., took the elevator downstairs, and drove away from the complex. About 40 minutes later, at 12:36 a.m., the toddler exited the apartment alone and began wandering the floor.
The child made his way to the elevator lobby, where two built-in benches were positioned underneath the ledges of two windows, both of which were open.
“At 12:44 a.m., the victim climbed on a bench in the elevator lobby,” the affidavit states. “The victim looked out the open window, climbed on the ledge and out of the window, and then fell out of the window. Outside of the window is a straight drop to the concrete at the ground level.”
Phenix returned to the complex at 12:51 a.m. and was back inside his apartment two minutes later, according to investigators.
Prosecutors allege Phenix “knowingly acted in a manner that created a substantial risk” to the child’s life by failing to supervise him in the high-rise apartment, ultimately resulting in his death.
Family members later identified the child as Tarvis Jr., affectionately known as “T-3,” and gathered to remember him in the days following the tragedy, according to a report from St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV.
Relatives described the toddler as deeply loved, while also raising concerns about safety conditions in the building.
The child’s great-aunt, Andrea Armour, told the station that hallway windows in the complex “stay open” and lack locks or screens.
“These hallway windows, they stay open, they don’t lock, there’s no screen, none of that,” she said.
Authorities have not indicated that building conditions played a role in the criminal charge, which centers on the allegation that the child was left unsupervised.
The St. Louis Housing Authority, which owns the property, is conducting its own investigation alongside police.
