Jeanne Maguire

By Christopher Kimball and Jeanne Maguire
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You can contact writers Christopher Kimball and Jeanne Maguire at kitchendetective@bcpress.com.

By Christopher Kimball and Jeanne Maguire

By Christopher Kimball and Jeanne Maguire
...
By Christopher Kimball and Jeanne Maguire

Jeanne Maguire

A week before her second birthday, a Long Island girl was found crying next to the savaged body of her mother - the victim of a stabbing that the toddler may have witnessed, cops said yesterday.

Little Kina Stanton spent untold hours sitting on the bed next to her 33-year-old mother, who was butchered sometime over the weekend.

The killer left the girl untouched, said police, who discovered Jeanne Maguire's body about 8 p.m. Saturday in the victim's Hempstead apartment on Terrace Ave., a neighborhood infested with drug dealers.
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Neighbor Doris Jackson said Kina meant everything to Maguire, a struggling welfare mother who was treated at a drug rehab clinic about a year before giving birth to her only child.

Maguire had been planning to throw Kina a birthday party this Saturday."She loved that little girl," said Jackson."She took good care of her."

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Child welfare officials said they had past contact with Maguire, but refused to offer details.Last night, the girl was staying with Stanton's sister.

'Assumed she was ... sleeping'

Jackson said she last saw Maguire on Friday, and heard music and what sounded like dancing at her apartment about 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Suspicious of the commotion, Jackson said she sent her 8-year-old son to investigate.The boy climbed out onto the the fire escape between Jackson's and Maguire's apartments and peeked in Maguire's window.

"He saw her lying down, but I just assumed she was ... sleeping," Jackson said.

But when Kina's cries kept echoing through the building, neighbors called the cops.