‘I wish I heard something:’ Neighbor struggles with West Brownsville toddler’s beating
Two-year-old Zachary Sumey, in a medically induced coma following a brain hemorrhage, used to sit in these folding chairs with his mother Brittany Sumey of Brownsville, according to their next-door neighbor Kristy Johnson. Sumey's boyfriend, Benjamin Lesczynski of Brownsville, has been charged with criminal attempt homicide and related charges after allegedly beating Zachary and causing brain injuries and severe head and torso bruising.
A 2-year-old boy was found seriously injured in the living room of the left half of the pictured duplex at 501/503 Main Street, West Brownsville on Saturday morning. The child's mother's live-in boyfriend, Benjamin Lesczynski, was arrested and charged with criminal attempt homicide, and the boy is in a medically induced coma with a brain hemorrhage.
While a West Brownsville toddler fights for his life, his neighbor grapples to understand why she heard no sounds of the brutal beating from the other side of her wall.
“I wish I heard something,” said Kristy Johnson sitting on the adjoining porch of her Main Street residence. “If I’d heard something, I could have stopped it.”
Zachary Sumey, 2, was allegedly beaten by his mother’s boyfriend, Benjamin Glenn Lesczynski, 26, of Brownsville Saturday morning. Lesczynski is facing attempted homicide and other charges for allegedly causing life-threatening brain damage. The boy was put into a medically induced coma at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh after severe hemorrhaging stopped an emergency surgery.
Lesczynski reportedly told police the boy may have fallen out of bed, claiming he went out to his car to get cigarettes and returned to find the child unresponsive. Zachary’s mother, Brittany Sumey, told police Lesczynski asked her to lie for him. She said she was upstairs when the alleged beating occurred. Sumey told police she was downstairs only briefly to use the restroom when she heard one of his sons say, “Dad, he is getting up.” Ten minutes later, she found her son unresponsive.
Johnson described what she considered a strange relationship between the children and parents in the neighboring house. She said they insisted Sumey’s son call Lesczynski “dad” and Lesczynski’s sons call Sumey “mom,” though they only moved in together within the last few months. She said Lesczynski’s previous girlfriend left the duplex suddenly one summer day with her children, leaving her daughters’ play house and dolls in the yard where they remain months later.
When the police knocked on Johnson’s door Saturday, she said she assumed Lesczynski hurt someone.
“I figured he either hit one of his kids or hit her,” she said. “I was kind of shocked, but at the same time, I wasn’t.”
On one occasion, she said she found Lesczynski’s son playing in her pool. She did not know who the child was at the time, but took him in for several hours.
Another night, she said she heard noises hinting at chaos from the other side of the wall, but when the neighboring residence went silent, she assumed it was just the children being “overly dramatic.”
“Now I’m wondering if that’s really what was happening,” she said.
Johnson said she rarely saw Leszysnki with the toddler unless they were all leaving the house together. She would often see the boy and his mother sitting on the porch together in warmer weather, or see him playing with his ball.
She smiled remembering a day she came home with McDonald’s for her children. Zachary was so excited at the notion that the meal was for him that she took some over to share.
Johnson said she hasn’t slept well since Saturday as she struggles with the idea that she could have done something to help.
“You hear about child abuse, and when you’re a mom, it always hits you. But when it happened on the other side of the wall,” her voice trailed off. “I just wish I’d heard something.”