A mother has locked herself in the bathroom of a busy Midtown Manhattan restaurant and smothered her 20-month-old son to death with her bare hands before shocked employees could burst in and stop her, police say.

As Latisha Fisher was being led away from the 5 Boro Burger joint on West 36th Street about 2.30pm on Monday, she blamed the devil for killing Gavriel Ortiz and then trying to stop workers who attempted to resuscitate him.

'I would describe her as soulless. She put her hand over his mouth and smothered him,' a police source told the New York Daily News.

Witnesses said Fisher was emotionless after the death of her child.

She claimed that she had put her hand over the boy's nose and mouth to put him to sleep, police say.

Unthinkable: Latisha Fisher (left) was arrested Monday after allegedly smothering her 20-month-old son Gavriel Ortiz to death in a bathroom at a Manhattan restaurant

Horrific: The 35-year-old mother allegedly locked herself in the bathroom of 5 Boro Burger in Midtown where she was later found holding her unconscious baby boy

Workers at the restaurant became alarmed Monday afternoon when a line grew outside the restroom.

When employees burst in to see what was wrong, they found Gavriel in his mother's lap - unconscious and foaming from the mouth.

A male employee performed CPR until paramedics arrived - despite the mother swatting help away. Unfortunately the aid was too late for the little boy who was later pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.

Police immediately took Fisher into custody and transported her to the Midtown South Precinct.

A woman who walked into the bathroom Monday afternoon says she saw Fisher with her hand over the baby's mouth, saying she was trying to 'make him go to sleep'. Above, investigators inside the restaurant on Monday

Baby Gavriel was found unconscious and foaming from the mouth when restaurant workers broke into the bathroom

Gavriel was rushed to Bellevue Hospital but doctors could not revive the young boy

Marcus Comeau told amNY that he was standing down the block when he saw Fisher being led out of the restaurant by police.

'The mother was coming out in handcuffs,' he said. 'She didn't seem too distressed, kind of had her head down.

'She didn't make a lot of noise. Not a big fit,' he added.

A law enforcement official described Fisher to the Daily News as 'soulless'.

Recent posts on Fisher's Facebook page appear to show her going through an emotional period.

'How did everything change on me. I went to sleep feeling well,' she wrote on March 27, one day after posting a thank you to 'everyone for supporting me'.

Neighbor's in Fisher's (left) Lower East Side apartment say she lived there with her boyfriend and father of her son Luis Ortiz (father and son pictured on the right)

Fisher's neighbors in the Lower East Side housing project where she lives told the New York Times that she and her boyfriend, Gavriel's father Luis Ortiz, had started fighting around Halloween.

Other neighbors told the Daily News that she was 'violent' and that they could often smell marijuana coming from her unit. Some remembered an older child being taken away from Fisher, and an incident in which she stabbed another family member.

Fisher's older son is reportedly a preteen.

'I think she just went cuckoo on whoever was up there,' neighbor Carolyn Lawson, 47, told the Daily News of the alleged stabbing. 'She needs help. It doesn’t make sense. I think she was on medication for whatever problem she had, but I’m assuming she wasn’t taking her meds.'