The city’s child-welfare agency removed two kids from the home of a Bronx mother shortly after her ex-husband murdered their oldest daughter, the outraged family said.
Joselyn Balbi, 30, was already reeling after her ex, Miguel Matias, 34, strangled their daughter Ana, 14, last month and shoved her body into the furnace of the Bronx building where he worked as a super.
“It is impossible to believe that a city could come to you after such a tragedy and take your kids away from you – instead of providing a counselor or someone to help you,” said her brother, Jose Balbi.
“It’s incomprehensible. She’s a good mother.”
The mother’s lawyer, Robert Abrams, said Balbi is being punished for leaving her children in the care of someone so unstable. But Abrams said Balbi was not aware of Matias’ mental problems, except for an episode in the early 1990s where he spent seven days in a psych hospital.
Matias is accused of strangling his daughter inside his Walton Avenue apartment on Feb. 16 after catching her chatting online with her boyfriend – the father of Ana’s unborn child, Abrams said.
Matias is being held at Bellevue Hospital.
Despite the gruesome death, ACS officials lured Balbi and her surviving children, Raymond, 13, and Derek, 10, to their Bronx office and separated them, her brother said.
“She went crazy,” Jose Balbi said. “She was crying and screaming, ‘They can’t take my babies.’ ”