This story was reported by REID J. EPSTEIN, MICHAEL AMON, NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, PATRICK WHITTLE and EMERSON CLARRIDGE. It was written by EPSTEIN.

12:37 AM EST, February 25, 2008

A New Cassel woman was charged Sunday with killing her three young children after years of family members' efforts to remove them from her care.

Nassau police charged Leatrice Brewer, 27, with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Jewell Ward, 6, Michael Demesyeux, 5, and Innocent Demesyeux, 1.

Policefound the children lying side by side in a bedroom on the second floor of their Prospect Avenue apartment, police Lt. Kevin Smith said.

It remains unclear exactly how the children were killed.

"It's possible that more than one method may have been used to hurt the children," Smith said.

Brewer will be arraigned Monday either at her hospital bedside or in First District Court in Hempstead, Smith said. Doctors will perform mental and physical evaluations to determine whether Brewer, who friends and family members said works part-time jobs as an office assistant and as a cashier, is well enough to leave the hospital or whether she should be transferred to a psychiatric facility, Smith said.

Friends and family members said the children had difficult lives with a mother whom they called erratic, troubled and in need of help.

Brewer's grandmother, Maebell Mickens, said she was trying to take legal custody of the children from Brewer. And the father of the two younger children, also named Innocent Demesyeux, said he "tried his best to take them away."

Both said the Nassau County Department of Social Services had declined repeatedly to remove the children from Brewer, who they said desperately wanted to keep them.

"She flipped out," said Mickens, 63, of New Cassel, describing the killings. "The system failed her."

Smith said police are investigating whether Brewer, who has not confessed, also jumped out a second-story window. She did not appear to be injured when police arrived.

As recently as Friday, family members called Social Services to complain that Brewer was using marijuana and cocaine in front of the children and threatened to kill them, a county source said.

Karen Garber, the Social Services program coordinator, declined to comment about any prior contact between the county and the family. She said only that the deaths are "a devastating tragedy" and the department is working with police.

Sunday night, almost 12 hours after a 911 call alerted police to the deaths, pairs of homicide detectives carried small, black body bags containing each of the three children down a back staircase and loaded them into a Nassau medical examiner's van parked in a nearby alley.

It was not unusual for police or county social workers to visit Brewer's two-story apartment building on Prospect Avenue. Smith said police have responded to at least a dozen 911 calls to the building in the last year.

Debra Rogers, Brewer's cousin, said family members called Social Services about Brewer several times but county officials never found a reason to remove the children. Another cousin, Robin Brooks, said Brewer saw conspiracies everywhere.

"She is a woman that needed help," said Brooks, of Westbury. "She felt everyone was against her."

But Brewer's brother, Robert McCord, offered a defense:

"My sister's not crazy," he said. "This is something that's a shock to all of us. That's it, she's a good, loving person."

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