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Long Island birth mother set to sue county, school district over death of 7-year-old daughter

Portia Duncan becomes emotional as she speaks about her late daughter, 7-year-old Jor’Dynn Duncan, during a news conference on July 7, 2026, in Melville, New York. (Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

(NEW YORK) — The birth mother of a 7-year-old girl from Long Island, New York, is planning to sue the county and school district following the death of her daughter in December 2025.

Portia Duncan filed a notice of claim against Suffolk County for allegedly neglecting her daughter, Jor’Dynn Duncan, by placing her in the care of her legal guardian, Emily Kelly, who Portia Duncan alleges physically abused, neglected and tortured Jor’Dynn.

Kelly was charged with second-degree murder and pleaded not guilty in court on June 23.

In addition to Kelly, her mother, Barbara Renner, and her daughter, Elyssa Seymore, were also arrested on charges regarding their alleged involvement in Jor’Dynn’s death. Renner was charged with second-degree manslaughter and Seymore with unlawful imprisonment, among other charges. They both pleaded not guilty.

Portia Duncan also filed a notice of claim against Bayport-Blue Point School District for allegedly failing to act on indicators of abuse she said Jor’Dynn presented.

“I miss her dearly, dearly,” Portia Duncan said amid tears in a press conference on Tuesday. “She was such a sweet, beautiful, smart, fun, girly girl. If I could turn back the time, I would’ve done things so much different.”

An autopsy determined that Jor’Dynn’s death on Dec. 29, 2025, was due to a massive untreated infection from more than 90 injuries that were found on her body at the time of her death, according to a Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office press release.

“These claims arise from the placement of seven-year-old Jor’Dynn Duncan, while she was in the custody of the County of Suffolk, into a home in which she was subjected to a prolonged, systematic, and ultimately fatal course of physical abuse, torture, and neglect; from 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 place, and to act upon the indicators of abuse she and other presented; and from 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,” the notice said.

Jor’Dynn allegedly missed 40 days of school between January and June 2025, according to the notice of claim. The child allegedly wore makeup to conceal injuries she incurred from the abuse on the days she did attend school, the notice said.

Kelly allegedly called the school with several excuses for Jor’Dynn’s absences to cover up the alleged abuse, including fake illnesses, deaths in the family and trips to Disney World, the District Attorney’s press release said.

Kelly gained full custody of Jor’Dynn in April 2025 upon her request, an investigation by the Suffolk County Police Department found. Kelly is the fiancée of Jor’Dynn’s father, who was in prison, according to the notice of claim.

Jor’Dynn was removed from Portia Duncan’s custody on account of a failed drug test, her attorney said.

The police investigation allegedly found extensive photo and video evidence of abuse captured on Kelly’s cell phone and other cloud-based accounts, the press release stated.

“The placement of Jor’Dynn Duncan with Emily Kelly was what led to her death,” Derek Sells, an attorney representing Portia Duncan, said in a press conference. “The failure to properly screen that placement, the failure to properly supervise that placement, and the failure to report clear abuse in the form of neglect, not going to school, all led to this death. And we’re gonna hold those people accountable.”

Sells said the filing of claims is the “first step” in the process of holding parties accountable for Jor’Dynn’s death. Filing a Notice of Claim typically comes before filing a lawsuit against the state, local government or a government agency in New York.

Both the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and the Bayport-Blue Point School District declined to comment on the claims.

Attempts to reach Suffolk County for a comment were unsuccessful.

The three women are set to return to court at the beginning of August, ABC News New York affiliate WABC reported.

“She pled not guilty at the arraignment, my client asserts her innocence, and we are vigorously going to defend her throughout these proceedings,” said John LoTurco, Kelly’s defense attorney, according to WABC.

“I’m so thankful to the Lord for giving me the chance to be in my daughter’s life the way that I was,” Portia Duncan said. “I’m very upset that she’s been taken from me.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Doctor convicted of attempted manslaughter of his wife wants a new trial, saying jurors may have been confused

By CNN
(CNN) — Along the steep Pali Puka trail last spring, the verdant beauty of Oahu spilled out to the Pacific Ocean from the scenic path where Gerhardt and Arielle Konig stood. On that high ridge, they fought for their lives – emotionally, then physically – each later would testify.A trip intended to celebrate Arielle’s birthday – and maybe salvage their troubled marriage – ended with the couple, who share two young children, on the ground attacking each other. He bashed her in the face with a rock. She bit him and squeezed his testicles.Who started the melee became the question at the heart of an attempted second-degree murder charge filed against Gerhardt Konig.Prosecutors said the defendant wanted to kill his spouse and tried to push her off the cliff. But after an emotional, 10-day trial a year later that saw husband, wife and one of Gerhardt Konig’s children from a prior marriage on the stand, the jury found him guilty of the lesser charge of attempted manslaughter.At Konig’s request, a judge on Friday heard arguments on whether a new jury should hear the case because of what two jurors in news interviews revealed soon after issuing the verdict that could send Konig to prison for up to 20 years, along with concern one juror may have communicated about the case outside the jury room during deliberations.“Jury irregularities call into serious question the integrity of this verdict,” defense attorney Thomas Otake wrote in an appeal filed in May.At Friday’s hearing, Judge Paul Wong said the court would question jurors about any outside communications during deliberations before deciding whether to grant a new trial. The court will revisit the matter on September 11.“The court must ascertain the extent of the influence,” Wong said.Whether defendant intended to kill is at issueFinding insufficient evidence to convict Konig of attempted murder, the jury found him guilty of attempted manslaughter, with his actions – even if extremely dangerous – motivated by “extreme mental or emotional disturbance.”Ruling out an attempted murder charge was a relief to Konig’s legal team and left open the possibility Konig could be sentenced to probation, with no jail time at all.“We are thankful that they did not convict him of attempted murder, which would have been life in prison,” Otake told reporters shortly after the verdict was announced.Still, the defense attorney immediately promised an appeal based on unspecified concerns about the judge’s rulings during the trial. When his motion dropped a month later, however, it wasn’t the judge Otake took issue with:The request for a new trial was based on what jurors said after the verdict.“Somebody was definitely hurt; it was a bodily injury to the head that could result in serious bodily injury,” foreperson Makalapua Atkins told CNN affiliate East Idaho News about jurors’ state of mind in deliberations.“The intent to kill is improbable to us based on the evidence presented,” Atkins said in an interview after the verdict with True Crime AZ, adding, “The only people who know what happened on that cliff are the two that were involved.”But under Hawaii law, Konig’s defense team has argued, even a conviction for attempted manslaughter would require the jury to find the defendant was trying to kill the victim – and the foreperson said they didn’t.“The jury did not unanimously believe that Dr. Konig had an intent to kill his wife,” Atkins confirmed in a sworn statement to the defense attorney accompanying his appeal. Prosecutors also asked Atkins to sit down with them for an interview, but she declined, their response to the request for appeal states. CNN could not reach Atkins for comment.Another juror, identified publicly only as Juror #3, also said he had not been convinced Gerhardt Konig intended to take Arielle’s life that day.“I don’t know if he was trying to kill his wife, personally,” he told Honolulu TV station KHON in an on-camera interview. “I do know that it was the capacity to kill his wife, personally. That how I felt about it.”If jurors didn’t understand what was required for conviction, Konig’s attorneys argued, it opens the door to a new trial.“Conduct that could result in death or has the capacity to kill may be reckless, but it is not necessarily intentional, and Hawaiʻi does not recognize attempted reckless manslaughter,” Konig’s defense attorneys said, with the emphasis, in a court filing.Did the jury understand the law?“The jurors’ public remarks raise a serious concern that the verdict may rest upon findings inconsistent with the convicted offense,” Konig’s defense attorneys said in a motion for a new trial.The judge’s instructions – 33 in all – were a lot to digest. They laid out a menu of five possible charges – from second-degree attempted murder to third-degree assault – explaining the order in which they had to be considered and steps to evaluating each.“If and only if you unanimously find that all the elements of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree have been proven by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt, and you unanimously find that the defendant was not acting in Self-Defense, then you must consider the affirmative defense of Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance,” one instruction states.In their response to Konig’s request for a new trial, prosecutors did not try to rebut the claim jurors were confused, instead saying it doesn’t matter. The “internal thought process” of the jury, even when revealed voluntarily by jurors, should not be reconsidered by the court after a verdict, prosecutor Joel Garner stated.“Jurors can change their mind, but what matters is whether the verdict was unanimous at the time it was rendered,” the prosecution wrote. “In this case it was, even according to the on-the-record statements of the foreperson – and therefore a later declaration disagreeing with the verdicts is not a sufficient basis to grant a motion for a new trial.”Juror may have revealed their discussions during deliberationKonig’s defense also raises another concern about the jury: that one member may have been communicating about the case to an outsider while deliberations were still underway.“I’ve been texting with one of the juror’s (sic) and they’re going for count 3 attempted manslaughter,” says a message posted to the live chat of trial coverage by the Law&Crime Network.The comment was first spotted by someone – whose name is redacted in the court filing – and emailed to prosecutors, who alerted the judge.“What caught my attention is that this commenter specifically predicted the verdict – that Konig would be convicted of attempted manslaughter – before it was announced,” the person wrote in the email.Whether it was legitimate or a hoax has not been proven, but Konig’s defense attorneys say the fact that it correctly foreshadowed the verdict should give it credibility.“Although the full scope of any such communication remains unknown, these circumstances raise substantial concerns regarding the jury’s exposure to outside influence or extraneous information during deliberations,” the defense team wrote.Prosecutors say even if the comment was authentic, it doesn’t require a new trial unless there is proof that “external influence” swayed the decision of the juror.“A juror disclosing where the jury stands is certainly problematic, but on its own it does not indicate that the other party influenced that juror in any way,” Garner said in their court filing.Could a new trial backfire?If Konig, who is in jail pending his sentencing, is granted a new trial, it could come with a big risk: He could face the attempted murder charge again after beating it in his first trial.Otake is trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.“The jury did not convict Dr. Konig of attempted murder in the second degree,” the defense lawyer wrote, arguing the conviction on the lesser charge amounts to an attempted murder acquittal since the jury could not convict Konig of both.“Any retrial must therefore be limited to offenses consistent with the jury’s verdict and the constitutional protections against double jeopardy,” Otake added.The Department of the Prosecuting Attorney in Honolulu has not said whether it would try to pursue an attempted murder conviction again if a retrial is ordered.Either way, the legal fight between Gerhardt and Arielle Konig will continue, as their divorce is still pending.“The marriage,” Arielle Konig wrote in her divorce petition, “is irretrievably broken.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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