After the death of girl, 6, mother is sued for surviving children

The mother of a 6-year-old girl who died Friday after police found her bruised and unconscious in an apartment in the Bronx has been charged with endangering the well-being of her two surviving children, police said Sunday.

Lynija Eason, 26, has not been charged with the death of Jalayah Eason, who was found unconscious and with bruises on her wrists and torso by police. But her two other children, an 8-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, were removed from the home, according to a law enforcement official. Ms Eason has been charged with two counts of child endangerment, police said.

Jalayah’s cause of death has not yet been determined, a spokeswoman for the chief investigator’s office said Sunday.

Shortly before 4 a.m. Friday, police officers responded to an 911 call about an unconscious child in an apartment in the Forest Houses complex in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx.

When officers arrived at the apartment, they found Ms. Eason on Jalayah, according to the CPR officer.

Emergency services took the girl to NYC Health & Hospitals/Lincoln, where she was pronounced dead.

Ms Eason was the subject of an abuse and neglect report last year regarding Jalayah’s 8-year-old brother, according to a person who accessed some of her social services records and spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Although the Youth Welfare Administration did not substantiate the report, notes in the family file indicated problems in the household.

In October, the brother’s school reported that the child came to school with a bruised and swollen face and told a teacher that his mother had beaten and kicked him for drinking from the sink, the file said. The school also reported that the brother was absent most days, often not picked up until an hour after discharge on days he attended, wore the same dirty clothes for days on end, and reeked of urine.

When a social worker visited the apartment a week later, no traces of the brother were visible, according to the files. Ms Eason told a social worker she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder during the pandemic but never received help for it. She offered no explanation for her son’s frequent absences from school. (Jalayah, who was 5 at the time, appeared not to be enrolled in school.)

Jalayah’s brother confirmed to the social worker that his mother had beaten him, but said he felt safe and comfortable with her.

At a subsequent conference with ACS, the school said it would keep a close eye on Jalayah’s brother. He was regularly absent from school, but two months later ACS closed the case of abuse and neglect as unfounded, according to the file.

The office is experiencing staff shortages. The person who had access to Ms. Eason’s file said the agency’s Bronx North field office, which covers Ms. Eason’s neighborhood, had requested help conducting home visits because social workers were overwhelmed. An ACS spokeswoman confirmed in a statement that central office employees had recently been assigned to help out at the Bronx North office.

Bronx North caseworkers have an average burden of 12.5 cases, ACS said — about 17 percent higher than the city ​​average.

Michelle Abreu, who lives in the apartment directly below where Jalayah was found, said she learned of the girl’s death when police knocked on her door on Friday morning.

“I just started crying, because it’s sad,” Ms Abreu, with her young nephew by her side, said in an interview in the building.

Camille Baker, Mary Kramer And Asma Elkeurti reporting contributed. Susan Beachy contributed research.