Father of 6-year-old Bronx girl killed in horrific beating hoping for justice with mother’s arrest: exclusive

After a Bronx mother was charged with murder for the beating death of her 6-year-old daughter, the child’s father is reliving the painful ordeal and wondering if his little girl will finally get justice.

Jelayah Eason was found bruised and unconscious in her mother’s E. 165th apartment in the Forest Houses on May 26, 2023. The girl was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, but could not be saved.

Lynija Eason Kumar, 27, was arrested Thursday and charged with murder and manslaughter, police said.

“My daughter was a daddy’s girl,” Ronald Branch told the Daily News Friday by phone. “She was very kindhearted, she loved her father.”

Eason Kumar was arraigned and remanded on Friday afternoon, said a spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney’s office.

According to the criminal complaint, Jelayah’s mother killed her by hanging her in a closet with her hands and feet tied and “repeatedly striking her daughter about the body with a hard object and leaving her hanging in said closet.”

An autopsy cited in the complaint listed other horrifying details: Jelayah was covered in bruises and scars, both new and healing, had ligature marks on her wrist and was extremely underweight.

“I just had to relive everything all over again,” said the devastated dad. “We don’t know if justice is going to be served until we go to trial.”

Recalling his daughter, Branch said: “Her favorite colors was pink and purple.”

Her cause of death was determined to be child abuse that included restraint and suspension, asphyxia, blunt force injuries and malnourishment, according to the court filing.

Two other children, an 8-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, were found in the squalid home and also showed signs of abuse and neglect.

The younger girl had “a long, discolored scar to the right side of her waist” and a “widespread discolored rash to her inner thighs and buttocks,” a 2023 court document said.

The boy had “countless small lacerations in various stages of healing on his back, scalp, arms and legs,” the complaint said. Cops also said he had a cut to his forehead and a deep cut on his scalp.

Court documents described an insect-infested apartment that reeked of rotted food, feces and urine, and cops who responded to a 911 call observed soiled clothing and linen and open containers of food stacked up into piles and on the floor.

Eason Kumar was charged last year with endangering the welfare of the surviving children and granted supervised release without bail while Jelayah’s brother and sister were taken into custody by the Administration of Children’s Services

After Jelayah’s death, while she lay in a morgue for months and the other children were in foster care, Branch said he had to take DNA tests to prove he was the father of Jelayah and the boy.

“I had to fight for paternity, and the judge granted me paternity,” said Branch.

The grieving father was finally able to give Jelayah a funeral on December 2, more than six months after she was killed.

ACS had been involved in the past, called in twice to investigate abuse allegations involving the boy, said a police source.

Branch’s son will be coming to live with him soon, he said.

At the time of Jelayah’s death, neighbors recalled the family’s residence as a house of horrors, with Eason constantly screaming at the little girl and her siblings.

One neighbor described hearing howls from the apartment before cops found Jelayah with bruising and trauma to her chest and neck.

“Last night there was terrible screaming,” recalled neighbor Dennis Rivera in 2023. “It was exactly 4 a.m. The little girl was screaming. I had to go outside. I knew something like this would happen.”

With Rocco Parascandola