The woman accused of fatally beating her 4-year-old son was allowed to attend his wake yesterday. Myrna Chenphang was escorted from Rikers Island to the Robeson and Brown Funeral Home in Brooklyn to see Jayden Lenescar in an open casket; she was reportedly weeping. Chenphang and her boyfriend Steven Dadaille face second-degree murder charges for little Jayden's death.
The Daily News has some disturbing details about the boy's final days. Chenphang and Dadaille beat him because he "touched himself...'They said they warned him not to touch himself and he went ahead and did it, so they threw him in the bathtub, threw cold water on him and began hitting him with the belt,' one source said." The source said Dadaille took over because "she was being 'too soft.'"
It's suspected that a wire hanger was also used to beat Jayden, who urinated blood. And when an EMS worker, called to the house days after the beating, arrived, the source says "he took one look at him and said, 'Who the f--- beat this kid?'" The News adds, per another source, "investigators think by touching himself he may have been trying to tell his mother he was being molested by someone."
The Brooklyn Ink spoke to Father Andrew Struzzeri, who is performing the funeral service for Jayden today. Struzzeri, who was asked by the boy's father Mackenzy Lenescar to conduct the service, has been reflecting on the right things to say, "I feel very sad for them - my heart goes out to the family," and added that it's okay if Jayden's family is angry at God, "God is big enough to take it - they shouldn’t be afraid of any of their feelings at all."
