In the dark of Tuesday evening, 10-year-old La'Shaun Armstrong waved his hands frantically at passing cars and cried out:
"Help! Help! Help!"
The little boy was soaking wet. Meave Ryan of New Windsor was driving north on Water Street, headed to dinner with family when she saw him.
"I'll never forget his face," Ryan said. "He was so frightened, and no one stopped."
Ryan pulled over, and La'Shaun led her across the railroad tracks to a deserted boat launch at the corner of the waterfront. That's where his mother had driven them into the water, he told her. His two little brothers, baby sister and mother were all still down there, but La'Shaun had opened a window and swam out.
Ryan climbed down to the water's edge but could see nothing in the murky Hudson. She took the boy in her car and raced up the hill to the City of Newburgh Fire Department, where she and La'Shaun explained about the van in the water.
Firefighters notified police and quickly launched what they thought would be a rescue mission. It instead became a night the city's mayor would call a tragedy unlike any Newburgh had ever seen.
The sopping-wet 10-year-old clinging to Ryan was the only one who knew what happened.
La'Shaun barely spoke at first, Ryan said. At the river, firefighters poked into the water with long poles, Newburgh police divers searched increasing swaths of river bottom, and a state police helicopter hovered overhead.
Divers searched for about an hour before finding the minivan submerged in 10 feet of water about 25 yards from the shore. They used a tow truck to pull it up the ramp. Everyone inside was dead.
Ryan stayed with the boy as detectives gently probed for information. He had a frightening story to tell.
His mother, 25-year-old LaShanda Armstrong, was upset because she thought her boyfriend was cheating on her, La'Shaun said. There had been some sort of incident that night at their apartment on William Street, and Armstrong put her four kids into the minivan and turned onto Washington Street toward the river.
There was 5-year-old Landen Pierre, 2-year-old Lance Pierre and 11-month-old Lainaina Pierre. La'Shaun was the big brother, and the only one of the children who knew how to swim. Ryan said La'Shaun wished he'd had the opportunity to teach the little ones.
Washington Street runs straight down a hill to the Hudson, and Armstrong drove her young family directly into the water. La'Shaun recounted his mother's last words for Ryan and the detective.
"If I'm going to die," Armstrong had said, "we're all going to die together."
La'Shaun scrambled for the button to roll down the window as the minivan sank into the river. That was not part of his mother's plan. Ryan said La'Shaun told them Armstrong tried to pull him back into the minivan before he was able to slip away and swim to safety.
Ryan stayed with La'Shaun for more than an hour, until the police finally had to take him away. She leaned down and kissed the boy on the head and spoke to him:
"I'll pray for you."
Article By: DOYLE MURPHY
Times Herald-Record
All of this behind a mother who was being cheated on with a neighbor while she was pregnant with the youngest kid. This is such a heartbreaking story. Now this little boy may blame himslef for feeling like he could have saved his siblings. Such a selfish thing for a mother to do.
told her four children that she wasn’t leaving this world alone.
Lashanda Armstrong told the children, “If I’m going to die, you’re going to die with me,” before the vehicle sank to the bottom of the river just before 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the only surviving child told authorities.
Shivering and barely able to speak, little Lashaun told firefighters how his mother had launched the van into the river with his siblings inside and how, just moments before, she dialed her dad for help, the kids screaming in the background.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to do something crazy,” Armstrong said, according to the boy’s story.
That prompted a 911 call that brought police to her Newburgh home, but it was too late.
