Aug 20, 2008 12:27 am US/Eastern
Many Questions Unanswered In Foster Child Death
Medical Examiner Expected To Announce How Jashya Brown Died On Wednesday; No Arrests Made
Reporting
Lou Young
FAR ROCKAWAY, N.Y. (CBS) ―
From foster care to an early death.
A Queens toddler was dead Tuesday night, weeks after being returned to his mother by child welfare officials.
Was it murder or a simple tragedy?
The building on Beach 31st Street remained a potential crime scene Tuesday night -- with children's toys strewn about the yard and cops guarding the rear apartment where a bruised and possibly battered toddler died Monday night, weeks after being returned to his troubled mother by the city's Administration for Children's Services.
Jashya Brown was one of three boys in the family. The 2-year-old had a baby brother and an older brother, age 5. All three boys, CBS 2 HD has learned, had been removed from the home in the past year and all three had been returned one at a time as the mother, Sheree Brown, passed parenting classes and accepted ACS visits to the home here.
On Monday night she called 9-1-1 saying Jashya was unconscious. She said he fell while wrestling with his older brother. An ambulance showed up, and as it took the boy away one neighbor told CBS 2 HD that what happened next was very strange.
"She wasn't really crying or nothing," Keesha Jones said. "She was saying 'Oh my baby. Oh my baby,' and bending down and everything. It looked real fake, like she didn't care about the boy."
CBS 2 HD was told it looked like the mother did not want to get in the ambulance with her child's body, but instead wanted to get into a cab with her boyfriend. Detectives at the 101 Precinct said there were bruises on the boy, but no obvious cause of death.
Sheree Brown had 16 neglect or abuse complaints against her, including 10 that were substantiated.
ACS said the home had been visited by its people no fewer than 30 times this past year -- most recently on Aug. 13.
Both surviving children were with ACS Tuesday night and the mother and her boyfriend have not been charged with any crime, but that could all change depending on what the medical examiner determines as the cause of death for the little boy. The announcement is expected Wednesday.
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