NJ girl, 6, died with teeth knocked out ‘cuz mommy whupped her a—’

🚨 Tragic death raises questions about child welfare failures

🚨 Mother charged with abuse but not for the first time

🚨 Did the system ignore past warnings and fail to protect children?

NEWARK — A 6-year-old girl may have been beaten so brutally by her mother that her teeth were knocked out, her little brother told police.

Police found the lifeless body of the little girl in her Stratford Place home in the South Broad Street neighborhood on March 10.

Her mother, Zyhirah Hall, 26, is now charged with child abuse but not with killing her child, whose cause and manner of death have not been determined as of March 20.

But whatever charges prosecutors file against Hall, this case may become an indictment of the state's criminal justice and child welfare systems, which allowed Hall to continue living with her children even after she pleaded guilty to nine counts of child abuse of two children and second-degree aggravated assault of one of them.

Hall took the plea deal with Essex County prosecutors on March 3. Less than a week later, little Ne’miya was dead.

And now, just weeks before she was scheduled to be sentenced for the abuse incidents that police said had occurred from September 2021 to April 2023, Hall is back in court under more disturbing circumstances.

Hall's long record of child abuse complaints is being reported on for the first time after New Jersey 101.5 legally requested and examined public court documents.

Knowing that Hall had pleaded guilty to child abuse, why did court and state officials allow her to remain with her children? That's a question that remains without an answer. The state Department of Children and Families, which runs the Child Protection and Permanency agency, did not return New Jersey 101.5's request for information.

The day police discovered Ne’miya's body

Hall told police that on March 10, a Monday morning, her daughter woke up vomiting with “stomach pain,” according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Hall said she gave her a graham cracker and assumed she was getting ready for school. The girl was instead found 10-20 minutes on the couch unresponsive and “cold to the touch," court documents said.

Investigators later noticed that the girl, identified as Ne’miya Hall by a GoFundMe campaign, had several missing teeth.

When investigators asked the woman's 4-year-old son where his sister was, he told detectives she was dead in the hospital “cuz mommy whupped her ass.” The beating caused her teeth to fall out, the brother said.

The boy also had a black eye, visible injuries on his back and marks on his back.

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Beatings with a belt

During a second interview with police, Hall admitted hitting her daughter with a belt on Friday, March 7, officials said.

Zyhirah denied knowledge of the missing teeth.

“She said she whipped her with a belt on the buttocks and hit her in the back of the head. She also admitted to whipping her 2-year-old son the same day," investigators said in court documents.

The girl’s father, Tymeer Duncan, told CBS New York that Hall said their daughter choked on a cracker but he was suspicious because there were too many scratches and bruises on her back. Duncan said that Hall lost custody of her children "several years ago" but got them back.

The GoFundMe campaign said that the girl's funeral will be March 28.

"This beautiful baby was placed back with her mother way too soon and we feel just as guilty," fundraising organizer Alexus Duncan said on the page. "No one could have possibly imagined that this would happen and we’re all left questioning for answers and wishing it was something more we could have done."

Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com