NEW YORK, United States (CMC) – Law enforcement authorities here say prosecutors may this week empanel a grand jury and elevate charges to murder against a Jamaican-born transgender woman accused of killing a four-year-old boy.

Prosecutors have charged Kryzie King, 27, born in Jamaica as Christopher King, with first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and unlawful imprisonment in the death of Myls Dobson, who was found dead, last Wednesday in the bathroom of an apartment on Manhattan’s West Side.

King was ordered held on US$500,000 bail. The medical examiner is yet to determine how the boy died.

Police say the boy’s father, Okee Wade, 37, who is currently in a New Jersey jail serving time on a fraud charge, had turned over the care of his son to King.

Court records show Myls was bound, gagged, beaten and burned during the three weeks King was taking care of the boy.

Police said he was forced out into the brutal cold wearing only a T-shirt and shorts the day before he was found dead in the bathroom of King’s apartment.

But the New York Daily News reported that Wade said he does not know King and he was a “loving father” to his son.

“I don’t know anyone named Kryzie King,” he told the paper in a jailhouse interview on Sunday, adding, “they put in the paper that I was dating a transsexual. That’s just wrong! I like women. I don’t date men, and I don’t date transsexuals”.

Prosecutors allege that the four-year-old child did not have a full meal since December 26 and had lost at least 20 pounds while under King’s care.

Prosecutors said paramedics said they found Myls unconscious and slumped over in the bathtub. His broken body was covered with scores of whip marks, burns and bruises, and his testicles had abrasions on them.

Myls’ mother, Ashlee Dobson, 29, told reporters she lost custody of her son after New York City’s Administration for Children Services (ACS) claimed she was an unfit mother.

Newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered an investigation into the case.