Little Jor’Dynn Duncan should not have gone to live with Emily Kelly, a woman from Long Island who allegedly abused a 7-year-old girl and killed her.
Kelly, along with her mother and grown daughter, all deserve life in prison after tying Jor’Dynn to a bathtub and leaving 90 gashes on her body before the child went into cardiac arrest in December.
It was a house of horrors – and Suffolk County Child Protective Services put him there.
Of all the foster homes in New York, why did child welfare officials and family court judges think Kelly’s was the right one?
Because even though she was not a blood relative of Jor’Dynn, Kelly was considered a “relative” under CPS rules.
Jor’Dynn’s mother lost custody of the child a few years ago, and his father is serving four years in Sing Sing for burglary.
Kelly is my father’s fiancee, so CPS placed Jor’Dynn in her home in December 2024.
A month later, the CPS was already investigating the ill-treatment there – however a judge gave Kelly full custody until April 2025.
When Jor’Dynn missed nearly 40 days of school that year, Kelly made numerous excuses to cover up the abuse, prosecutors said.
There were other red flags: Kelly’s one-year-old son also reportedly died in 1997 from abuse. Her boyfriend was sentenced to 23 years in prison for murder.
He also had a daughter who died in 1994 under mysterious circumstances.
Only willful ignorance can explain why so many officials thought that Emily Kelly’s home would be a good place for Jor’Dynn.
Why didn’t they protect this child?
One of the reasons is that the social institutions that prioritize placing children with “relatives”, which is favored by activists, academics and state officials and both structures have been strengthened.
Intuitively, yes, it makes sense to place a child with an aunt or grandmother if the parents are unable to care for them.
But dysfunctions that exist in the nuclear family often exist in the extended family as well.
Addiction, mental illness, domestic violence and child abuse are common intergenerational issues.
So the left’s desire to protect children and people of color, combined with the right’s interest in saving money and limiting government access, has created a perfect storm.
The Biden administration told states they could create looser licensing standards for foster families — and the Trump administration reiterated this in a recent “Dear Colleague” memo.
Both said they want to remove the barriers of the authorities that prevent family members from caring for children whose parents cannot.
But if they are unnecessary obstacles, they can be removed from relatives and non-relatives alike.
The truth is that organizations already have many incentives to place children with extended family, or “fictitious relatives” – anyone who knows the child.
Relatives are often paid little, if at all.
And case workers know that they will be heavily blamed if something goes wrong in the care of a non-relative family.
But there are serious reasons for concern when placing a child in an extended family.
A report out of Oregon this spring found that the state’s rate of abuse of foster children has reached an all-time high — after three years, between 2022 and 2025, when the percentage of children placed in foster care nearly doubled, from 18.8% to 36.1%.
An analysis of child abuse deaths in Minnesota from 2014 to 2022 found that six out of seven foster care deaths occurred in foster homes.
Advocates for more kinship care — New Jersey stopped hiring non-relatives altogether a few years ago, saying relatives would be able to handle 100% of the need for foster homes — say they’re not sacrificing safety.
But Illinois recently loosened its rules on post-placement screenings for relatives: Authorities are clearly willing to look the other way.
As Kelly’s case moves into criminal court, the temptation will be to focus solely on the women who committed these heinous acts.
But it would be a huge mistake to ignore the plans that defeated Jor’Dynn.
Ironically, Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine made the point that “CPS should not be blamed for the placement of Jor’Dynn and Kelly,” because “it was done by a judge.”
But CPS officials, not judges, make foster care recommendations; the judges confirmed their choice.
You don’t do it alone.
It is too late to save Jor’Dynn from the unimaginable torture he has endured.
But to honor his memory, we must prevent it from happening again.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
