Jean Pierre (2nd from left), dad of kids who
died when their mom, Lashanda Armstrong, drove their car into the
Hudson, and Datrice Armstrong (3rd from left), Lashanda's mother, leave
the funeral home. You would think that having to eulogize a 5-year-old, a 2-year-old and a baby who didn't make it to her first birthday is the most terrible thing in the world.
You would be wrong.
An even more terrible thing is allowing a family feud - however understandable - to turn a sad, solemn funeral into a raucous shouting match in which everyone loses.
That's what happened at the funeral of Landon, Lance and Lainaina Pierre, who died with their 25-year-old mother, Lashanda Armstrong, when she drove them all into the Hudson in a suicide plunge on April 12.
Fury erupted after the children's father, Jean Pierre, gave police a list of 80 people who should be allowed into the service at the Alphonso E. Brown Funeral Home in Spring Valley, Rockland County.
Only 18 of the invited mourners were members of Armstrong's family.
"Enough is enough!" shouted Gwendolen Green, 48, a nurse and Armstrong cousin whose son was blocked from entering.
"This side of the family matters, too! You know it's wrong!"
Green objected to the display of grief shown by Pierre, who had quarreled with Armstrong on the night of the tragedy over his philandering and an order of protection she'd gotten against him.
"He's carrying on so [much] in there, screaming and hollering. The guilt is filling him up," said Green, who wore photo-buttons of the children.
"Treat the mother right! Don't abuse! Pay child support! You're supposed to take care of people when they're alive!"
At the Gethsemene Cemetery in nearby Congers, relatives from both sides of the family wailed loudly in unison as the three tiny white coffins were lowered into the ground, fitting together into one burial plot.
They were supposed to be buried with their mother in another cemetery last Thursday, but Pierre, 26, stopped that plan at the last minute, decreeing they should not be buried with the woman who killed them.
Armstrong's 10-year-old son, Lashaun Armstrong, who escaped the vehicle by swimming into the frigid waters, attended his mother's funeral. He stayed home with an aunt yesterday, relatives said, to spare him more pain.
As gravediggers from the Nugent Bros. Co. finished their work, one paused to tenderly arrange three bouquets of white lilies and tiny blue forget-me-nots atop the grave, right next to the headstone of Cornelius Mahoney, who died at the age of 95.
Along with the sadness and anger one question loomed: How could a mother kill her own children?
How could she do it, no matter how much she wanted to punish their father for cheating on her?
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