After a Bronx woman was charged with murder for fatally beating her 6-year-old daughter, the child’s father is reliving the ordeal and questioning whether his daughter will get justice.
Identified as Jelayah Eason, she was found bruised and unconscious in her mother’s apartment on E. 165th in Forest Houses on May 26, 2023. The infant was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
His mother Lynija Eason Kumar, 27, was arrested Thursday and charged with murder and manslaughter, officials said.
“My daughter was a daddy’s girl,” said Ronald Branch. “She was very kind, she loved her father.”
Eason Kumar was arraigned and remanded in custody Friday afternoon, a spokesperson for the Bronx district attorney’s office said.
According to the criminal complaint, Jelayah’s mother murdered her by hanging her in a closet with her hands and feet tied and “repeatedly striking her daughter with a hard object and leaving her hanging in said closet.”
The autopsy cited in the complaint stated: Jelayah was covered in bruises and scars, both new and healing, had ligature marks on her wrist, and was extremely underweight.
Father of 6-year-old Bronx girl killed in horrific beating hoping for justice with mother’s arrest: exclusive
Lynija Eason Kumar, 27, was charged with murder and manslaughter
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“I had to relive everything again,” said the devastated father. “We don’t know if justice will be served until we go to trial.”
The cause of his death was determined to be child abuse, which included restraint and suspension, asphyxiation, blunt force injuries and malnutrition, the court record says.
Two other minors, an eight-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl, were found in the woman’s house, showing signs of abuse and neglect, Daily News reported.
The three-year-old girl had “a long, discolored scar on the right side of her waist” and a “widespread discolored rash on her inner thighs and buttocks,” according to a 2023 court document.
On the other hand, the boy had “countless small lacerations in various stages of healing on his back, scalp, arms and legs,” the complaint says. Officers also said he had a cut on his forehead and a deep cut on his scalp.
Court documents described the apartment as being full of insects, reeking of rotting food, feces and urine, and officers responding to the scene observed dirty clothing and bedding and open food containers piled on the floor.
Eason Kumar was charged in 2023 with endangering the welfare of surviving children and granted supervised release without bail, while Jelayah’s two siblings were transferred to the Administration for Children’s Services.
After the death of the minor, while she was in the morgue for several months and the other children were in foster homes, the father said he had to take DNA tests to prove that he was the father of Jelayah and the child.
“I had to fight for paternity and the judge granted it to me,” Branch explained.
The father was finally able to provide a funeral for Jelayah on December 2, more than six months after her murder.
Branch’s son will soon return to live with him, he said.
At the time of Jelayah’s death, neighbors remembered the apartment as a house of horrors, with Eason always yelling at the girl and her siblings.
A neighbor described hearing howling from the apartment before police found Jelayah with bruises and trauma to her chest and neck.
“Last night there were terrible screams,” neighbor Dennis Rivera recalled in 2023. “It was exactly 4 in the morning. The girl was screaming. I had to go out. “I knew something like this would happen.”
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