The Things They Did Were Absolutely Grisly – The Story of Jor’Dynn Duncan

Jordan Rose Duncan was born into this world on March 22, 2018, to her mother Portia Duncan and her father Derrick Dickson. From the very beginning, she was described by her family as a radiant light whose joy and confidence were entirely infectious. Her natural sparkle and vibrant personality had the unique ability to completely fill every single space she ever entered.

She grew into a little girl who was famously sassy, incredibly smart, deeply kind, and endlessly loving. Her family often remarked that she possessed a bright, beautiful smile that could effortlessly melt the coldest of hearts. Jordan had a profound love for music, constant movement, joyous laughter, and the simple comfort of being surrounded by love.

Her family structure was vast and complex, as she had a total of twelve brothers and sisters. The large sibling group shared many memories, though they also shared the profound grief of losing loved ones early. Among her siblings was an older brother named Ja’Field, who had tragically passed away when Jordan was still very young.

When Jordan was approximately fourteen months old, the trajectory of her young life shifted dramatically due to her parents’ struggles. She was removed from her mother Portia’s custody after Portia unfortunately failed a mandatory drug test. Portia also had a history of previous convictions for drug possession and other minor offenses, which complicated her custody battle.

At that exact same time, Jordan’s father Derrick was unavailable to take his daughter into his care. He was actively serving a four-year prison sentence following a conviction for an attempted burglary. Desperate to ensure that his infant daughter would not be absorbed into the foster care system, Derrick looked for alternatives.

He decided to reach out to his ex-wife, a woman named Kim Jackson, pleading for her assistance. Derrick asked Kim if she would be willing to open her home and help raise the tiny, vulnerable toddler. Kim would later recall that the very first time she laid eyes on baby Jordan, she immediately fell completely in love.

Without hesitation, Kim agreed to take the child in and provide her with the stable environment she so desperately needed. For the next five years of her life, Jordan stayed comfortably in Kim’s care, growing into a bright and energetic child. She was surrounded by extended family and friends who cherished her deeply and watched her develop her lively personality.

However, in November of 2024, a fateful discovery entirely upended the stability Jordan had known for half a decade. Child Protective Services discovered that Kim had been allowing the young girl to have unsupervised sleepovers with her biological mother, Portia. Because Portia had not regained her legal custody rights, these visits were considered a direct violation of the custody arrangement.

As a direct result of this discovery, Jordan was abruptly removed from Kim’s loving and familiar care. This was not the first time allegations regarding unauthorized contact with Portia had surfaced during Kim’s guardianship. While Jordan was living with Kim, Child Protective Services had actually received a total of seven separate complaints about these visits.

However, only the final two complaints made in November of that year had been officially substantiated by investigators. Following Jordan’s removal, the family scrambled to find a new, safe placement for the six-year-old girl. Kim had two adult daughters who both immediately stepped forward and volunteered to take the child into their own homes.

Despite their willingness, another figure in the family’s orbit stepped forward to claim responsibility for the little girl. Derrick’s new fiancee, a woman named Emily Kelly, specifically requested to be the one to care for Jordan. Because Emily had the explicit backing and full support of Jordan’s biological father, the system allowed the placement to proceed.

By April of 2025, Emily Kelly was officially awarded full legal custody of the young girl. It was at this critical juncture that the protective systems meant to monitor Jordan’s well-being seemed to entirely vanish. Even though Child Protective Services had been heavily involved in Jordan’s life since infancy, they inexplicably stepped away once she lived with Emily.

Almost immediately after the custody transfer, Emily began constructing a thick wall of isolation around the child. It became increasingly and painfully difficult for Kim, as well as Jordan’s devoted godmother Alicia Case, to arrange any visits. Many times when they successfully made plans with Emily to see Jordan, the stepmother would simply cancel at the very last minute.

Emily’s excuses for these sudden cancellations were varied, frequent, and often incredibly difficult to verify. At one point, she brazenly claimed that numerous text messages from family members had gone completely unanswered because her phone was broken. Jordan was suddenly and constantly missing long-planned playdates, family gatherings, and birthday parties with no valid explanation.

Whenever questions were raised, Emily always had a seemingly plausible excuse ready to dismiss the family’s growing concerns. Once, she claimed that she had taken the six-year-old on a wonderful trip to Hershey Park for a family outing. However, despite the family’s requests, Emily never produced a single photograph as proof that this amusement park trip had ever occurred.

On another occasion, Emily told the family that she had taken Jordan on a magical vacation to Disney World in Florida. Yet again, there was absolutely no photographic evidence, souvenirs, or concrete proof of this grand vacation ever taking place. On the rare, fleeting occasions that Jordan’s relatives were actually permitted to visit her, they were deeply disturbed by what they saw.

The once meticulously well-mannered little girl, who used to dance all day and faithfully say her prayers at night, was fundamentally changed. Her family noticed that the undeniable, radiant spark that had always defined Jordan’s personality was completely gone. Furthermore, she was no longer being kept as neat and clean as she had been in the past, and her hair was rarely styled.

During one specific instance, Jordan’s godmother Alicia carefully planned to bring the little girl’s cousins over for a joyful reunion. When they arrived at the house, Emily completely blocked their entry and refused to let them see the child. Emily aggressively claimed that the six-year-old was suffering from an oral abscess and a highly contagious double eye infection, ordering them to leave immediately.

The very next day, Emily sent messages claiming she had responsibly taken Jordan to see a doctor for these severe ailments. In tragic reality, investigators would later uncover that the young girl had never once been taken to a medical professional while in Emily’s custody. The medical neglect was total and absolute, leaving the child to suffer entirely in silence.

Simultaneously, major red flags began to clearly emerge regarding Jordan’s attendance at her local elementary school. Between January and June of 2025, the young girl was officially marked absent for more than forty separate school days. Her attendance dropped so drastically that she only attended classes for a mere two days during the entire month of May.

When concerned school officials finally questioned Emily about the chronic truancy, she was quick to provide a litany of tragic excuses. She skillfully blamed the dozens of absences on a string of sudden sicknesses, tragic deaths in the family, and out-of-state vacations. Because Emily appeared to be highly engaging, cooperative, and entirely believable, the school officials tragically took her at her word.

Due to their misplaced trust in the stepmother’s lies, the school never escalated the issue, and Child Services was never contacted. A social worker employed by Jordan’s school would later state that she had personally contacted Emily in September of 2025. The social worker had genuinely offered Jordan specialized counseling services for the new school year, but Emily firmly declined the supportive intervention.

Desperation began to severely mount among the members of Jordan’s extended biological and chosen family. One of Jordan’s family members stated they became so terrified that they independently called Child Services in April of 2025. This desperate call was prompted after the young girl mysteriously failed to show up for a family baby shower she was highly expected to attend.

By this point in time, her family strongly and correctly believed that Emily was purposely and maliciously keeping Jordan away from them. Unfortunately, when Emily eventually learned of this specific complaint made to the authorities, her retaliation was swift and cruel. She coldly informed Jordan’s concerned relatives that they would not be permitted to see the child ever again.

The isolation continued for months until a brief, haunting spark of communication occurred on Christmas Day of 2025. Jordan’s godmother Alicia unexpectedly received a text message from the seven-year-old’s device, thanking her for Christmas presents she had dropped off earlier. Overjoyed but anxious, Alicia immediately tried to call the phone back, but the line simply rang out and she never heard back.

That brief, digital message would tragically serve as the very last communication Alicia would ever have with her beloved goddaughter. Because just four short days later, a horrific sequence of events would completely shatter the facade Emily had built. Around 10:30 in the morning on December 29, 2025, frantic calls were made to emergency services in Long Island, New York.

First responders were dispatched with high priority to a residence located on Oak Street, where Jordan lived with Emily. The stepmother calmly told the 911 operator that the seven-year-old had been suffering from a severe fever and intense bouts of vomiting. She then claimed that the sick child had suddenly and unexpectedly fallen into a state of full cardiac arrest.

When highly trained first responders hastily arrived at the chaotic scene, they found a deeply disturbing sight. They discovered tiny Jordan lying completely unresponsive on the floor just outside of the home’s bathroom. The paramedics immediately initiated life-saving measures and rushed her at top speed to a nearby medical facility.

Despite the frantic and desperate efforts of the emergency medical staff at the hospital, it was far too late. Sadly, the seven-year-old girl was officially pronounced dead approximately one hour after arriving at the emergency room. The news of her sudden, inexplicable passing sent immediate shockwaves of absolute devastation through her extended family.

On the very day that Jordan tragically died, her godmother and maternal grandmother had been actively trying to visit her. But once again, adhering to her strict pattern of cruel isolation, Emily had completely blown them off and ignored their pleas. It wasn’t until the following day that the stepmother finally texted them to deliver the unimaginably horrible news.

In her carefully crafted message, Emily went on to explain a highly detailed but entirely fabricated narrative of the previous night. She claimed that Jordan had spiked a dangerously high fever, prompting her to administer Tylenol around three in the morning before sending her to bed. When Emily allegedly woke up six hours later, she claimed Jordan was loudly moaning and complaining of a severe stomachache.

Emily’s narrative continued to state that the child then began suffering from uncontrollable diarrhea and violent vomiting. Emily boldly claimed she had attempted to wash the sick child up, but that Jordan suddenly collapsed and completely stopped breathing. She told the family she had bravely administered CPR while waiting for paramedics who eventually tried to revive the girl before rushing her away.

“I am so sorry to have to tell you this.”

“I am beside myself.”

“I am devastated.”

Emily had additionally texted these hollow sentiments to the grieving family, attempting to play the role of a heartbroken mother. She also conveniently explained that her house had been heavily flooded with police detectives and family services personnel. She used this police presence as her primary excuse as to why she had not informed the family about Jordan’s death any sooner.

However, the carefully constructed lies began to completely unravel once the seven-year-old’s official medical autopsy was performed. The medical examiner made a series of utterly horrifying discoveries that painted a picture of unimaginable, prolonged torture. It was officially discovered that Jordan had approximately ninety distinct, separate injuries covering her tiny, broken body.

Among these horrific findings were nine separate sharp force injuries located on her anus, pointing to severe and targeted abuse. The medical examiner also documented three massive internal injuries to the young girl’s colon. Many of these fatal, catastrophic injuries had been viciously inflicted in the sheer forty-eight hours immediately prior to her tragic death.

Because the child had been left completely without any medical care or intervention, her physical condition had visibly and rapidly deteriorated. Ultimately, the autopsy concluded that Jordan ended up dying from a massive, systemic infection that ravaged her weakened body. This lethal infection was directly caused by one of the severe perforations in her bowel, which eventually resulted in her suffering fatal cardiac arrest.

The nightmare did not end with the fresh wounds, as the examiner found a historical map of pain on the child’s skin. Jordan had about twenty older, distinct injuries on her body that had now formed into permanent, visible scars. It was expertly determined by medical professionals that these older injuries dated back as far as January of 2025, shortly after she moved in.

Many of these deep scars were uniquely loop-shaped, a pattern that investigators instantly recognized. These specific marks were entirely consistent with brutal, repeated whippings inflicted by a folded electrical cord or heavy belt. The autopsy further revealed that Jordan also suffered from severe blunt force injuries to her scalp, alongside distinct human bite marks on her leg, arm, and hand.

The overwhelming physical evidence of chronic torture immediately shifted the police response from a medical tragedy to a full-scale homicide investigation. On May 20, 2026, after months of meticulous evidence gathering, authorities finally made their move against the perpetrators. Jordan’s adopted mother, fifty-year-old Emily Kelly, was officially placed under arrest by local law enforcement officers.

She was immediately charged with an array of severe crimes, including second-degree murder and reckless endangerment. Additionally, Emily faced charges of unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a vulnerable child. Recognizing her as a severe flight risk and danger to the community, the judge ordered her held on a massive ten million dollar bond.

Prosecutors aggressively alleged that the stepmother had not merely abused the child in spontaneous fits of hidden rage. They outlined how she had wickedly and systematically tormented the little girl every single day while she was legally in her care. Furthermore, prosecutors revealed that Emily had spent months meticulously constructing a complex, completely false narrative to hide her crimes.

Emily had actively tried to convince family and school officials that Jordan was severely mentally ill and inherently prone to self-harm. To support this wicked lie, she inventively fabricated non-existent therapists and completely fake psychiatric hospitalizations. She also created fake school incidents and detailed meetings with educators that thorough investigators would later discover had never actually happened.

But as the dark truth came to light, it became clear that Emily was not the only monster living inside that house. Two additional, highly disturbing arrests were made in direct connection with the prolonged torture and subsequent murder of the little girl. Emily’s seventy-five-year-old mother, Barbara Renner, and Emily’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, Alisa Seymour, were both placed in handcuffs.

Barbara Renner was officially charged with second-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. Due to her advanced age and involvement, she was formally held on a half-million dollar bond by the presiding judge. Alisa Seymour was charged with the severe crimes of unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a child, receiving a quarter-million dollar bond.

Even though it took several agonizing months to formally place the three women under arrest, authorities were suspicious from the start. Law enforcement officials publicly stated that they knew almost immediately upon arriving at the scene that something was deeply off about Jordan’s death. The atmosphere in the house was entirely devoid of the natural grief expected when a child suddenly passes away.

One seasoned officer who personally responded to the Oak Street home noted a deeply chilling detail in his initial report. He stated he thought it was incredibly odd and highly suspicious that none of the three women could initially remember Jordan’s actual name or birthdate. Furthermore, he noted that seventy-five-year-old Barbara did not show a single ounce of human emotion during the entire traumatic incident.

The true depths of the family’s depravity were fully unlocked when digital forensics experts cracked the women’s electronic devices. Investigators allegedly recovered massive amounts of extensive photographic and highly graphic video evidence from Emily’s personal cell phone. They also subpoenaed heavily encrypted cloud-based accounts that thoroughly documented the prolonged, daily abuse and torture of Jordan.

This digital mountain of evidence included horrifying footage of physical restraints, fresh physical injuries, and the purposeful lack of medical care. The digital timestamps expertly proved that this specific campaign of terror had been ongoing since at least January of that year. One specific, heartbreaking video taken on December 28th showed the grim reality of Jordan’s final hours on earth.

The footage showed tiny Jordan lying helplessly in the bottom of a porcelain bathtub around 6:15 in the evening. In the video, the elderly Barbara was seen physically holding the weakened child down by force. The little girl appeared completely limp, severely discolored, and her small eyes were visibly swollen completely shut from repeated beatings.

She was clearly heard on the audio track softly moaning in absolute, unendurable agony. A staggering sixteen hours had then purposefully passed between the exact time that specific video was recorded and when 911 was finally called. There were dozens of other highly disturbing videos discovered neatly saved on Emily’s phone, dating back months.

One particularly awful and depraved recording was dated July 27th, roughly five entire months before Jordan was finally killed. In this sickening video, the little girl is clearly seen weeping while forced onto her hands and knees. She is positioned inside a standard bathroom bathtub that has been intentionally filled with raw human fecal matter.

Emily, who is holding the camera and actively filming the horrific scene, aggressively orders Jordan to look directly up at the lens. Then, in an act of pure evil, the human feces are violently shoveled directly into the child’s open mouth and swollen eyes. All the while, the audio captures the poor, helpless child loudly moaning and desperately crying out.

“No.”

“It burns.”

Upon closer forensic inspection of the footage, investigators could easily see the severe physical toll the abuse had already taken. You can clearly see that Jordan’s eyes are massively swollen, protruding unnaturally from her small, bruised face. She also has bright, visible, angry marks streaked across her forehead, which medical experts stated were entirely consistent with severe chemical burns.

While filming, Emily is also heard actively and viciously threatening the terrified little girl. She taunts the child by telling her that she is going to personally show this humiliating video to a family court judge. She cruelly states that the video will guarantee that Jordan is permanently removed from her home and thrown away.

Investigators listening to the tapes noted the bitter irony, realizing that being removed from that home would have been the child’s only salvation. On that exact same day in July, Emily was also found to have sent a series of chilling text messages to her adult daughter, Alisa. The mother and daughter casually and frequently discussed their ongoing torture of Jordan as if it were a mundane daily chore.

“Damn, she dark as hell,” Emily wrote in one message.

They were actively discussing a severe facial injury that Emily had recently caused to the little girl’s eye by violently striking her.

“I think when I backhanded her yesterday, I might have did that to her eyes,” Emily callously admitted via text.

“You definitely did that to her eyes,” Alisa replied without a shred of empathy.

Alisa then went on to warn her mother that an outside associate named Zaya had noticed the injuries and was becoming highly suspicious.

“Imagine he saw that? You would go to jail,” Alisa texted.

The two women also frequently gossiped about how the former guardian, Kim, had seen Jordan’s severely bruised eyes looking odd during a brief encounter. They gleefully noted that Kim had simply believed the swelling was entirely due to seasonal allergies, rather than blunt force trauma. Through their digital communications, it was obvious they arrogantly thought they had successfully gotten away with something major.

The mother and daughter duo also routinely discussed their shared strategy of maliciously depriving the six-year-old of all normal childhood joys.

“No games, no books, no words,” Alisa proudly wrote to her mother, outlining their cruel rules of isolation.

“I’m going to ignore her completely,” Emily quickly replied in agreement.

A minute later, Emily texted again, further detailing her psychological warfare against the young child.

“The invisible girl, except for putting her stuff in her cuts to heal quietly,” she typed out.

“Food and nothing more,” Alisa responded back, completely devoid of human compassion.

“Every time she fucks up, belt to the ass. No more hitting and fighting, just belt to the ass. That’s it,” Alisa continued.

“No more nice, no more feeling sorry, but no more hitting her face or talking. Simple. We have to make her feel like we don’t give a fuck about her or what she do,” the twenty-four-year-old demanded.

A few minutes after that horrific exchange of ideas, Emily sent a brief but highly telling message.

“I just beat a 7-year-old. I’m going to hell,” the stepmother accurately predicted.

The digital trail of unmitigated cruelty continued well into the late summer months of 2025. On August 15th, the two women would exchange casual text messages about how Jordan was currently tied up like an animal inside the household bathtub. Emily calmly asked her daughter Alisa for advice on how to physically force the little girl to stand up.

She asked this despite fully knowing the child was tightly bound with restraints and physically could not stand on her own. In a display of profound sadism, Alisa coldly suggested using metal household tweezers to violently pinch the little girl until the pain forced her to stand. In another intercepted message that Emily sent to Alisa, she complained that it looked like Jordan had gotten severely beaten up the entire summer.

“She’ll be healed up by school,” Alisa replied back dismissively, showing a calculated awareness of the school calendar.

As the historical timeline proved, Jordan did indeed have many unexcused and highly suspicious absences from her local elementary school. But on the rare, scattered days when they actually did send her out into the public school system, Emily took calculated precautions. She would actively try to hide all of the child’s fresh facial injuries by heavily applying thick adult makeup to the seven-year-old’s bruised face.

Tragically, this deceptive and bizarre camouflage apparently worked perfectly on the adults tasked with monitoring the students. Because of the makeup and Emily’s lies, Child Services never got involved during the school year. Despite the absolute mountain of damning evidence, videos, and confessed texts, all three women would eventually plead not guilty to their respective criminal charges.

Following the arrests, the tight-knit community and Jordan’s devastated family gathered to demand justice and absolute transparency. Dozens of heartbroken family members and local supporters purposefully packed the crowded courtroom during the preliminary hearings. They all arrived wearing bright pink shirts, powerfully emblazoned with a beautiful photograph of Jordan Duncan’s smiling face.

They came to the courthouse desperately seeking answers as to how this profound systemic failure could have ever happened. They wanted to know exactly how a vulnerable seven-year-old was placed by a family court judge directly into the home of Emily Kelly. They demanded to understand how prosecutors could allege an entire year of uninterrupted, documented torture led to her December death without anyone intervening.

“How could this child have all these things going on and nobody see it?” one anguished family member publicly asked the press.

“You know, were they blind?”

“No kid should ever suffer the way my granddaughter suffered,” another grieving relative declared loudly outside the courthouse steps.

“CPS needs to answer, the schools need to answer,” they demanded passionately.

In response to the overwhelming grief and unanswered questions, the child’s surviving family swiftly compiled a highly aggressive legal team. They hired top attorneys to thoroughly investigate exactly what went so catastrophically wrong within the county’s protective framework. Their primary goal was to legally prove that those specific government officials who were legally assigned to protect her completely failed to do so.

While the civil lawyers prepared their massive legal briefs, the family’s daily supporters remained deeply focused on the little girl herself. They focused their tears and prayers on the bright, radiant child who would tragically never get the chance to grow up. The community held multiple vigils, echoing the sentiment that they loved her so much and missed her immensely every single day.

Meanwhile, the defense attorneys representing the three accused women began laying the groundwork for their highly controversial legal strategies. Emily Kelly’s defense attorney publicly stated to the gathered media that he remained highly confident that his client would ultimately be entirely exonerated. Barbara’s attorney took a different route, claiming that the seventy-five-year-old woman actively suffers from severe dementia and therefore holds absolutely no criminal culpability.

Alisa’s lawyer aggressively stated that the twenty-four-year-old had absolutely nothing to do with Jordan’s tragic death. He firmly denied all the severe allegations leveled against his client, specifically contesting the evidence from the three-day torture period in July of 2025. The defense claimed that the charges against the daughter and grandmother were purely circumstantial and entirely shocking to the accused women.

The public was absolutely repulsed when details of Emily’s initial police interviews were legally leaked to the press corps. When Emily was first formally interviewed by homicide detectives, she arrogantly stuck to her completely fabricated narrative regarding the child’s mental state. She boldly told the seasoned investigators that the sole reason for Jordan’s horrific injuries was because of the little girl’s own severe psychological issues.

She disgustingly claimed that the seven-year-old willingly ate her own feces, constantly forced herself to vomit, and regularly engaged in extreme self-harm. Detectives were thoroughly sickened by the blatant lies, knowing they already possessed the video evidence proving Emily had forced the child into these acts. Furthermore, phone records proved that on the exact day that Jordan died, Emily had spoken to her incarcerated fiancé, Derrick, from a jail phone line.

During that recorded call, she coldly told Jordan’s father that his young daughter was currently having some sort of severe mental breakdown. She described the dying child as simply sitting in a pile of filth and refusing to speak to anyone in the house. Derrick immediately begged Emily to bring Jordan directly to the emergency room, but Emily quickly made up a flimsy excuse so she wouldn’t have to leave the house.

She then pacified the worried father by stating she would simply have Jordan’s personal therapist weigh in on the situation in the morning. Investigators quickly verified that this supposed medical therapist was entirely fictional and had never actually existed in reality. Furthermore, detectives uncovered another recorded phone call Emily had made to Derrick back on May 21st of 2025, spinning a web of complex lies.

During that specific spring phone call, she falsely told him that she had just gone to Jordan’s elementary school that exact day. She claimed she had attended a highly serious, multi-agency conference with the child’s teachers, the principal, the school nurse, and a school psychologist. She told Derrick that social services had also been present at this meeting because the little girl had allegedly stuck her finger down her throat.

Emily claimed that Jordan had purposefully made herself violently throw up directly onto the crowded lunchroom table, causing a massive scene. But when diligent detectives later interviewed all the named school officials, they were completely adamant that this emergency meeting had never once occurred. They confirmed that Jordan had never thrown up at school, and in fact, attendance records proved the child wasn’t even in the building that day.

As the murder investigation deepened, detectives began to look closely into Emily Kelly’s deeply disturbing and highly suspicious historical background. Initially, it appeared that Emily Kelly’s only prior official arrest on record was a relatively minor charge in 2023 for driving while intoxicated. However, a deeper dive into heavily archived family court records revealed a much darker, incredibly violent past involving multiple children.

Nearly three full decades earlier, Emily had actually had her own biological infant son permanently taken away by state authorities. This removal was executed due to severe, homicidal domestic violence occurring regularly within her household environment. Then, records showed that Emily had subsequently given birth to another baby, a girl named Kayla Ann, who tragically died in 1994.

At the time of little Kayla Ann’s death, Emily was only eighteen years old, and the specific circumstances surrounding the infant’s passing remained highly unclear. The trail of dead children did not stop there, as records from 1997 showed Kelly had yet another one-year-old infant son named Tyler. Tragically, baby Tyler was brutally killed by Emily’s live-in boyfriend at the time, who eventually confessed to the horrific crime.

The boyfriend officially admitted to police that he had violently and forcefully thrown the tiny infant directly into his wooden crib because the baby wouldn’t stop crying. For this brutal murder, the boyfriend was ultimately sentenced to twenty-three years in state prison and was only recently released in 2020. Astonishingly, Emily was never formally charged with any crime in relation to baby Tyler’s brutal death.

Local authorities at the time had determined that she was technically not inside the home at the exact moment the fatal injury was violently inflicted. Currently, the local district attorney’s office is completely refusing to publicly comment on these historical tragedies. They will not confirm whether or not they are actively planning to legally reopen either one of those decades-old infant death investigations.

Presently, Emily Kelly remains firmly behind bars, and her next major court date for Jordan’s brutal murder is firmly set for the beginning of October. If she is ultimately convicted by a jury of her peers for these heinous crimes, she is facing a maximum sentence of twenty-five years to life in prison. In the direct aftermath of the public outcry, Suffolk Child Protective Services was legally forced to release an official child fatality review report.

This highly anticipated government report closely examined the agency’s exact actions and inactions leading up to Jordan’s tragic death. Shockingly, the official document proudly stated that they did not conduct any active investigations into Jordan’s direct care in the entire year prior to her murder. The agency defended this lack of action by claiming they had simply received no highly credible, actionable reports of abuse or severe neglect during that specific timeframe.

Therefore, the highly controversial internal report officially found absolutely no legal or procedural fault in CPS’s standard handling of the doomed child’s case. Outraged by this blatant lack of accountability, Jordan’s biological mother, Porsha Duncan, took massive, unprecedented legal action. She officially filed a massive civil lawsuit against Suffolk County, demanding an astonishing two hundred and fifty million dollars in financial damages.

In her comprehensive legal filings, Porsha fiercely claimed that the county had willfully and repeatedly ignored massive warning signs and blazing red flags. She legally argued that several distinct government organizations were grossly negligent in properly monitoring the young child’s daily health and basic safety. She further alleged that these heavily funded agencies fundamentally failed to intervene when it was highly obvious the child was in mortal danger.

The lawsuit also explicitly pointed out that the county did not properly or thoroughly vet Emily Kelly’s deeply troubled background before placing Jordan in her home. Had they looked at the historical deaths of the two infants in the 1990s, they never would have allowed the placement to proceed. Porsha openly admits to the public that she did temporarily lose custody of her beloved daughter strictly because of her own personal mistakes and a single failed drug test.

However, she fiercely maintains that she never once laid a hand on her child, never abused her, and was fundamentally a damn good, loving mother.

“If I can turn back the time, I would have done things so much different,” Porsha stated, her voice breaking with unimaginable regret.

“She wasn’t protected.”

Now, Jordan’s grieving mother is directing her legal fury not just at the county, but also specifically against the Bayport-Blue Point School District. Her massive lawsuit seeks damages explicitly alleging severe systemic negligence, reckless endangerment, and blatant racial discrimination by the involved parties. Her attorneys vehemently argue that numerous, mandatory legal steps could have easily been taken by mandated reporters to prevent Jordan from needlessly dying and suffering.

The legal team points directly to the school’s absolute failure to report the most obvious, glaring signs of alleged physical abuse to state authorities.

“Jordan was chronically absent from school,” her legal advocate pointed out to the press.

“Jordan was coming to school with heavy makeup as a 7-year-old,” the attorney stated, highlighting the absurdity of the school ignoring such a massive red flag.

The family is demanding that the entire legal and protective system be torn down and rebuilt so this never happens to another innocent child.

“We need justice for our kids that are out in the system that are not here any further,” a family spokesperson demanded outside the court.

“Justice will be served for my daughter.”

For the people who truly and purely loved Jordan Duncan, they confess there are specific, beautiful memories of her that they simply cannot stop replaying in their minds. They constantly remember Jordan’s bright, infectious smile, her loud, joyous laugh, and the haunting reality of that final, brief voicemail message.

“Merry Christmas,” the tiny voice had cheerfully said on the recording.

“The big Squishmallow was so big and I loved it. It’s comfy,” the innocent seven-year-old had added.

Her godmother Alicia Case had lovingly dropped those specific Christmas presents off at the Bayport home where Jordan was practically being held hostage. But on that specific holiday, exactly like so many numerous times before, Alicia says that Emily maliciously kept her physically away from the sweet seven-year-old.

“Thank you for all the presents. Love you guys,” the child’s text message had read.

Exactly four torturous days later, little Jordan was dead on a bathroom floor.

“To think that she was in pain of like any of that,” a family member sobbed, unable to even finish the horrific thought.

“It’s hard to hear.”

“She was all by herself and she had no voice,” they cried, mourning the profound, terrifying isolation the little girl endured.

“We love her so much.”

“We wish we knew.”

The family admits they had a terrible, sinking feeling that something was wrong, but they never imagined the true, horrific extent of the violence. So much of the daily abuse was expertly hidden behind locked doors, fake smiles, and thick layers of adult cosmetic makeup.

“And now we know,” a relative stated grimly, burdened forever by the horrifying truth of the autopsy reports and digital videos.

When reporters asked if the family was ever able to have a single private, unguarded conversation with the child during that entire year, the answer was heartbreaking.

“No,” a family member confirmed, shaking their head in deep sorrow.

“She never let Jordan be alone looking back now,” they realized, understanding that Emily’s constant presence was a calculated tactic of pure control and intimidation.

Alicia recounted how she was constantly reaching out, desperately doing absolutely everything she could possibly think of to maintain a connection with the little girl. She constantly offered to casually meet at the local public library, to quickly grab food at McDonald’s, to meet at her own house, or to simply come over to Emily’s house. Every single attempt was skillfully blocked, diverted, or aggressively shut down by the monstrous stepmother who was orchestrating the child’s daily torture.

Jordan Rose Duncan’s emotional, heavily attended funeral was finally held on a cold winter day on January 20, 2026. After a beautiful, heartbreaking service filled with pink flowers and gospel music, she was finally laid to rest in eternal peace. She was carefully buried at the serene Washington Memorial Park located in Mount Sinai, New York, surrounded by the people who truly loved her.

The community continues to struggle to even begin to understand the sheer, unadulterated amount of cruelty that these three adult women gleefully inflicted on one poor, helpless seven-year-old girl. It remains utterly baffling because it is not like Emily didn’t have a multitude of other, perfectly safe options for the child’s care. It was abundantly clear from the very beginning that there were several other loving family members who desperately wanted to take Jordan in and raise her properly.

Yet, instead of relinquishing control, Emily chose to isolate, torture, and ultimately destroy a beautiful, radiant light. The community now waits with bated breath for the October trials, praying that the judicial system does not fail little Jordan one final time. They demand that the gavel falls with the absolute maximum weight of the law, ensuring that Emily Kelly, Barbara Renner, and Alisa Seymour never see freedom again.