The 3-year-old girl who was allegedly left by her monstrous dad to burn alive inside a chained-shut car in Queens died as a result of smoke inhalation and thermal injuries, the city’s medical examiner ruled.
Zoey Pereira suffered a gruesome death Sunday night after she was left strapped in a baby seat inside the locked, gasoline-covered Audi A6 that was set ablaze in Springfield Gardens.
First responders pulled the girl’s charred body from the flaming car parked at 155th Street and Baisley Boulevard, but she could not be saved.
The medical examiner announced Zoey’s cause of death Wednesday and officially ruled the child’s death a homicide.
Zoey’s dad, 39-year-old Martin Pereira, had threatened the victim’s mother, Cherone Coleman, 36, shortly before the horrific incident, saying, “You’re never going to get your daughter again.”
Charges are pending against Pereira, who remains hospitalized at Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Pereira suffered second- and third-degree burns to 70 percent of his body as a result of the incident.