In People v. Suarez, 6 NY3d 202, 844 N.E.2d 721, 811 N.Y.S.2d 267 (2005), the Court of Appeals clarified the evolution of their holdings with respect to the charge of depraved indifference murder in cases with single victim killings where only the victim was endangered. 844 N.E.2d at 727-8. There, the Court of Appeals identified two fact patterns where a defendant could be convicted of depraved indifference murder when only a single person is endangered by the defendant's actions: (1) a fact pattern where a defendant intended neither to seriously injure, nor to kill, but abandoned a helpless and vulnerable victim in circumstances where the victim was highly likely to die (id. at 729); (2) a fact pattern where a defendant -- acting with a conscious objective not to kill but to harm -- engaged in torture or a brutal, prolonged and ultimately fatal course of conduct against a particularly vulnerable victim. 844 N.E.2d at 727-8. In Suarez, where defendant stabbed her former boyfriend in the chest during an argument, and then immediately called 911 and requested an ambulance, the Court of Appeals held that this was not, as a matter of law, depraved indifference murder, noting that "the mere presence of third persons at the scene of a killing does not convert an intentional homicide directed at a particular victim into depraved indifference murder unless others are actually endangered." Id. at 730, fn 7. The Court of Appeals recognized only two fact patterns in which defendants had been convicted of depraved indifference crimes in situations involving one-on-one violence: (1) "when the defendant intends neither to seriously injure, nor to kill, but nevertheless abandons a helpless and vulnerable victim in circumstances where the victim is highly likely to die" and (2) "when a defendant--acting with a conscious objective not to kill but to harm--engages in torture or a brutal, prolonged and ultimately fatal course of conduct against a particularly vulnerable victim" (id. at 212). In these situations, the conviction of a depraved indifference crime must be based on proof of "wanton cruelty, brutality or callousness directed against a particularly vulnerable victim, combined with utter indifference to the life or safety of the helpless target of the perpetrator's inexcusable acts" (id. at 213.) The Court of Appeals held that depraved indifference murder applies only to a small and finite category of cases. However, the Court explicitly included within those categories, convictions involving isolated attacks upon a single person, in which the attacker acted with the intent to injure rather that kill, and engaged in a brutal or prolonged course of conduct against a particularly vulnerable victim such as a child. The Court held that the repeated beating of a child "reflected wanton cruelty, brutality or callousness directed against a particularly vulnerable victim, combined with utter indifference to the life or safety of the helpless target of the perpetrator's inexcusable acts." Id. Such actions clearly fall within the proper scope of depraved indifference. Id. The Court of Appeals noted that "the proliferation of the use of depraved indifference murder as a fallback theory under which to charge intentional killers reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the depraved indifference murder statute." Continuing, the Court of Appeals stated "because the statute requires 'circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life' (Penal Law 125.25 2), depraved indifference murder applies only to a small, and finite, category of cases where the conduct is at least as morally reprehensible as intentional murder" (People v. Suarez, supra at 207). The Court of Appeals, in Suarez (supra), plainly stated that "a defendant may be convicted of depraved indifference murder when but a single person is endangered in only a few rare circumstances" (Suarez, supra at 212). The Court of Appeals then proceeded to define those circumstances: "First, when the defendant intends neither to seriously injure, nor to kill, but nevertheless abandons a helpless and vulnerable victim in circumstances where the victim is highly likely to die, the defendant's utter callousness to the victim's mortal plight--arising from a situation created by the defendant--properly establishes depraved indifference murder citing People v. Kibbe (35 NY2d 407, 321 NE2d 773, 362 NYS2d 848 1974), where the defendants robbed an intoxicated victim and forced him out of a car on the side of a dark, remote, snowy road, partially dressed and without shoes in subfreezing temperatures, where he was struck by a passing truck, and killed, and People v. Mills (1 NY3d 269, 804 NE2d 392, 772 NYS2d 228 2003), where the defendant, without intent to harm or kill his victim, pushed a young boy into the water, watched him submerge without resurfacing (either because the boy had accidentally struck his head or because of an epileptic seizure), falsely informed his friends in response to their cries to help the victim that he was in fact swimming away, and abandoned the drowning boy to die" (People v. Suarez, supra 212).