The instructions to ​Jor'Dynn Duncan were made clear on June 14, 2025: The 7-year-old was not to leave her bed that night or the following day, except to use the bathroom, and she could not speak with anyone. Shakes and books were left within reach for nourishment as her appointed caretaker traveled the roughly 80 miles from her home in Bayport to visit the girl’s father at a correctional facility upstate. "She said she promises she won’t do anything bad," Emily Kelly wrote in a text message explaining her plans to leave the child behind for a day. "I told her I’m going to be recording her on the Alexa and if she does anything wrong I am having the state pick her up and bring her to the group home." Jor'Dynn never was sent away. Instead, the girl continued to live with Kelly — who was in a relationship with her incarcerated father — Kelly’s aging mother, Barbara Renner, and her adult daughter in the cottage-style home on Oak Street. Six months later the girl was dead of injuries th...