Jor'Dynn Duncan's mother to sue Suffolk County for $250M in death of 7-year-old girl, court document shows

The mother of Jor'Dynn Duncan, the 7-year-old Bayport girl who prosecutors said was tortured and killed by her legal guardian last year, has filed a notice of claim — seeking $250 million in damages — against Suffolk County, its child welfare agency and several other entities and individuals for allegedly failing to adequately monitor the girl’s foster care placement before her death. 

The notice of claim, a required precursor to a lawsuit, was filed by attorneys for Jor'Dynn's mother — Portia Duncan, of Mastic Beach, who lost custody of Jor'Dynn when she was about 14 months old following a failed drug test — and alleges that Suffolk County and the other parties acted with "negligence, gross negligence, recklessness, deliberate indifference, emotional distress, civil rights violations, and racial discrimination" in the monitoring and supervision of the second grader, who died Dec. 29.

The notice of claim, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of New York, said Portia Duncan plans to sue for $250 million in damages, cites the placement of Jor'Dynn in the home of Emily Kelly, who was made her legal guardian, and "the failure of the County of Suffolk, the Suffolk County Department of Social Services, and Suffolk County Child Protective Services to adequately investigate and vet the caregiver with whom they placed her, to monitor her health, safety, and general well-being during the approximately one year she remained in that placement, and to act upon the indicators of abuse she and others presented."

Portia Duncan plans to address reporters at a news conference Tuesday morning at her attorney's office in Melville. Her lead attorney, Heather M. Palmore, declined to comment before the news conference.

Suffolk County was obligated, under the law, to "conduct periodic monitoring and casework review" while Jor’Dynn was in foster care — her mother had not surrendered her parental rights nor had they been terminated, the court document said. Suffolk was also tasked with ensuring that required permanency hearings were held to review Jor’Dynn’s "safety, well-being, and permanency status and the continued appropriateness of her placement" every six months, the court document said.

"Upon information and belief, the County Respondents failed to perform the required six-month monitoring and review of the [Emily Kelly] placement, and failed to advance and to ensure that the required periodic permanency hearings were held," the court document said. "Had the required monitoring and permanency proceedings taken place, the outwardly observable, escalating, and ultimately fatal signs of Jor'Dynn's abuse would have been detected, her placement reassessed, and her death prevented."

The alleged inaction was part of a pattern in Suffolk, the court document said, citing the 2020 killing of 8-year-old Thomas Valva, whose allegations of abuse were repeatedly ruled unfounded in the years before he died of hypothermia after his father and father’s fiancee forced Thomas to sleep in a freezing garage. His death resulted in a series of county-initiated reforms at Suffolk County Child Protective Services.

"Upon information and belief, the County of Suffolk failed to implement, follow, and enforce these reforms in Jor'Dynn's case, and further abandoned a public caseload-transparency resource it launched in or about December 2023 within days of its creation, reflecting the County's persistent failure to remediate the very deficiencies that foreseeably led to Jor'Dynn's death," court documents allege.

The court document lists the following as defendants: Suffolk County; the Suffolk County Department of Social Services; Child Protective Services; the Bayport-Blue Point School District and its Board of Education and its members; not yet named employees, contractors, and supervisors at DSS; Dr. Timothy Hearney, the superintendent of the Bayport-Blue Point School District; Emily Eckstrum, the assistant superintendent for personnel and pupil personnel services; Lorie Beard, principal of Academy Street Elementary School; Katy Ann Tirando, the assistant principal; Michelle Muccio, the school social worker; Tiffany Morici, a school counselor; a not yet named classroom teacher and not yet named teachers, social workers, teacher assistants, administrators, as well as other employees, contractors and supervisors.

Michael Martino, a spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, acknowledged receiving the document but declined to comment on possible pending litigation.

The Bayport-Blue Point School District also acknowled in a prepared statement it was served with a notice of claim. "As a standard practice, the District does not comment on pending legal matters," the statement said.

Three generations of a single Bayport family who lived under the same roof — Emily Kelly, 50, who was engaged to Jor'Dynn's incarcerated father and was granted custody of Jor’Dynn; her mother, Barbara Renner, 75, and Kelly's daughter Elyssa Seymore, 24 — have been indicted on charges in connection with Jor'Dynn's abuse and death. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Kelly’s attorney, John LoTurco, has called Jor’Dynn’s death a "tragic accident." He previously told Newsday that CPS stopped monitoring Jor’Dynn after a Suffolk Family Court judge awarded full custody of Jor’Dynn to Kelly in April 2025.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has said Jor’Dynn’s death was preceded by "months of alleged systematic cruelty and sadistic abuse, meticulously documented."

Suffolk prosecutors have said an autopsy revealed that Jor’Dynn sustained nine sharp-forced wounds to her backside and a perforated colon from additional internal sharp-force wounds that led to a "massive infection." She had at least 90 injuries on her body suffered in the final 48 hours of her life, and 20 older injuries, including some that suggested she had been whipped by a folded cord in the past, prosecutors have said.

The document mentions two of Kelly’s children died previously, as Newsday has reported.

It also cites "the failure of the Bayport-Blue Point School District and its personnel, in their capacity as mandated reporters, to report the outwardly observable indicia of abuse and Jor'Dynn's chronic school absenteeism."

Jor'Dynn missed about 40 days of school in the months before her death, prosecutors have said. Kelly was "extremely communicative" and provided "detailed excuses about illnesses, sicknesses, a fraud in the family, a trip to Disneyworld and so on," school officials said, according to prosecutors.

The court document says that Jor’Dynn was sent to school in "significant and age-inappropriate amounts of makeup" in an effort to conceal "bruises, welts, contusions, lacerations" and other physical injuries. 

A state child fatality report issued last month said Suffolk Child Protective Services did not conduct any investigations into Jor’Dynn’s care in the year before her death, Newsday has previously reported.

After Portia Duncan failed a drug test administered by probation officers, Newsday previously reported, Jor’Dynn was placed in 2019 with Kim Jackson, who was previously married to Jor’Dynn’s father, Derrick Dixon, who is incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

CPS received seven complaints related to Jor’Dynn’s care during the time she lived with Jackson, including five complaints alleging that Jor’Dynn had unauthorized contact with her biological mother or "inappropriate caretakers," the report said.

Two of those allegations were substantiated and she was removed from Jackson’s care and placed with Kelly.