Robert Buskey admitted starving 5-year-old Charlotte Buskey and giving cocaine to her younger brother.
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — A Schenectady man was sentenced Friday to 27 years to life in prison after admitting he starved his 5-year-old daughter to death and gave cocaine to her younger brother inside what prosecutors described as a filthy, isolated home on Elmer Avenue.
Robert S. Buskey Jr., 35, had pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder and criminal sale of a controlled substance to a child. The sentence, imposed by Schenectady County Judge Matthew J. Sypniewski, closed the criminal case without a trial but left a courtroom focused on the final months of Charlotte Buskey’s life, when prosecutors said she was locked in a bedroom from the outside, denied food and water, and left to die while her father used drugs and played video games nearby.
Prosecutors said first responders were called to the house on April 14, 2024, for an unresponsive girl. What they found, according to the district attorney’s office and courtroom testimony, was a child who weighed 30 pounds when she died at age 5 after weighing about 40 pounds at age 2 1/2. Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Christina Tremante-Pelham told the court that Charlotte had been cut off from relatives, medical care and school, and spent her final days in a cramped pack-and-play inside a room secured from the outside. “She had no food, no water, no contact with anyone, in a pack and play, left there to die, and she did,” Tremante-Pelham said in court.
Buskey also admitted guilt on a drug charge tied to his young son, who was 3 when Charlotte died and is now 5. Prosecutors said the boy was kept in a makeshift cage in the dining room and that both children tested positive for cocaine. The authorities’ account described a home stocked with food even as Charlotte’s bedroom remained locked. Investigators said Buskey had installed a lock on the outside of the girl’s door and reinforced it after learning she could work the door open. The autopsy found severe dehydration and no food in her body, according to prosecutors. In court Friday, Buskey cried and said there was no excuse for what he had done. He said he understood why people saw him as a monster and told the judge he was there to take responsibility.
The case became one of the most disturbing child death prosecutions in recent Schenectady County memory. Sypniewski called it perhaps the cruelest and most agonizing child murder the county had seen. He told Buskey that prison would still provide better conditions than those his daughter endured, with food, water and a bed. Prosecutors said Charlotte and her brother had been removed from normal public life for months. They were no longer seeing family members, were not attending medical appointments and had never been enrolled in school. Authorities said Buskey’s conduct met the standard for depraved indifference murder, a charge used in New York for acts that show an utter disregard for human life.
Defense attorney Joseph Litz did not contest the facts of Charlotte’s death, but he argued that Buskey had long struggled with drug addiction and mental health problems after retiring from mixed martial arts. Litz also said broader systems around the family failed to detect what was happening. The judge rejected the idea that public agencies were on trial, saying the case centered on Buskey’s own choices and his lack of empathy. Prosecutors noted that Buskey waived his right to appeal as part of the plea agreement. The sentence included 25 years to life on the murder conviction and an added two years on the drug count, for the total of 27 years to life.
The courtroom hearing also underscored what remains unresolved outside the sentence itself. Questions about missed warning signs have continued since Charlotte’s death, though no public proceeding Friday focused on potential failures by family members, neighbors or agencies. Another defendant in the case, Buskey’s former girlfriend Brandi Terhune, previously pleaded guilty to tampering with physical evidence and two misdemeanor child endangerment charges in a deal that called for probation rather than prison. Her lawyer said she had been physically abused by Buskey and cooperated early with investigators. Buskey’s son is now living with an uncle, and the court issued an order of protection barring Buskey from contact with the boy for 35 years.
The sentence leaves Buskey facing decades in prison and likely confinement for the rest of his life, while the public record of Charlotte’s last months remains fixed in court filings and prosecutors’ statements. Friday’s hearing marked the end of the criminal case against him, but not the lasting questions raised by a child’s death inside a home where food was close by and help never came in time.
Author note: Last updated April 6, 2026.