TRAGIC: Stuffed animals and balloons form a poignant memorial yesterday at the site where the van plunged into the Hudson, as reported by The Post. The kids who died were the children of deadbeat Jean Pierre (above).
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She saw no way out.
The overwhelmed mother who drowned herself and three kids in the Hudson River tried her best to provide her family with a happy home life — but was consistently let down by their deadbeat father, who failed to provide the love or money they desperately needed, her friends said yesterday.
Lashanda Armstrong, 25, kept a steady job and took college classes but was abandoned by Jean Pierre — the fly-by-night father of the three dead children — and had nowhere to turn for help.
“He was terrible to her. He was very domineering and controlling over her. He was just so cruel. She just wanted a normal family,” said one friend, Christine Santos, 29, who lives nearby.
The dad — who was arrested in March because of $11,000 in unpaid support — also threatened to claim custody of the kids.
“That’s what pushed her over the edge,” said Santos. “He must have broken her spirit and taken away her will to live.”
Pierre, 26, consistently ignored the needs of his children — and was oblivious to Armstrong’s postpartum depression after the birth of their third child, Lainaina last year, the friend said.
“She kicked him out a few times, but I don’t think he cared,” Santos said. “He considered himself the only pretty boy in Newburgh and could get any girl he wanted.”
Meanwhile, Armstrong was trying to better her life.
She worked at a Newburgh garment factory, and got good grades at Orange County Community College.
She was known as a good mom — her kids were neatly dressed and well behaved — but the stress of doing it alone took its toll.
Pierre reached an all-time low on Super Bowl Sunday, according to court papers, when Armstrong left him with their sleeping 2-year-old son, Lance, and took the others to her aunt’s house to watch the game.
He promptly ditched the boy and went off to a nearby store.
“Lance found his way out of the apartment and down to the street” barefoot and shirtless on a bone-chilling, 19-degree night, according to court papers.
He was found shivering in his soaking sweatpants on a dirty, downtown street and taken to a police station.
Pierre’s girlfriend, Shannel Baez, showed up to claim the boy, pretending to be his mother.
Armstrong told cops that Pierre shamelessly denied knowing Baez — and downplayed the incident when she frantically called him.
“He was calm and I was freaking out. I almost crashed the car and I had to pull over,” Armstrong said in an affidavit to police.
When she got to the house, cops were already there and “I was yelling that I wanted to see my son,” she said in the affidavit.
Baez and Pierre were both arrested, and he was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, authorities said.
A restraining order that barred Pierre from seeing Lance was issued on April 12 — just hours before Armstrong, in a final fit of frustration, drove the boy and his siblings down a boat ramp and into the fast-moving river.
Lance was killed along with his 5-year-old brother, Landen, and 11-month-old sister, Lainaina.
The only survivor was 10-year-old Lashaun Armstrong, who has a different father than the other kids.
He escaped through a window while the minivan was sinking, and managed to swim 100 feet to shore.
Armstrong made a dying declaration on Facebook just 30 minutes before the fatal plunge, writing, “I’m sorry everyone forgive me please for what I’m gonna do . . . This is it!!!”
Her friends had no doubt that Armstrong was just trying to escape Pierre, who was creating a dead-end life for her and the kids.
“I know it broke her heart, but she kept it all bottled up,” Santos said. “She was a quiet girl, didn’t bother anyone.
“It was the constant cheating and lying.”
Armstrong — who had Lashaun at 15 — was also financially abandoned by Pierre, who went by the street name Prime.
He was arrested on March 15 by the Rockland County Sheriff’s office for unpaid child support.
But the private Armstrong never burdened her relatives with those problems until it was too late.
On her tragic death ride, she called her mother, grandmother and father.
“She didn’t say what she was going to do. She was saying, ‘I love you. I’m sorry,’ ” said her aunt, Angela Edge-Gilliam.
Meave Ryan, 31, a passer-by, found a shivering Lashaun on the side of the road.
She said the child told her, “She was holding on to all of them and said, ‘If I’m going to die, you’re all going to die with me.’ She said that two or three times.”
Additional reporting by Douglas Montero