WHEN THE BOW BREAKS...

The Port Richmond mother found dead alongside her four children in a bizarre murder-suicide in Port Richmond last week had soot in her lungs, meaning she was alive and breathing after her apartment was set ablaze, according to law enforcement sources.

Ms. Jones, a single mother with children by several different fathers, had been attending beauty school while working part-time as a security guard at the Macy’s in the Staten Island Mall to make ends meet. She had been evicted from her Washington, D.C., apartment, and her landlord in Port Richmond sued her in February for almost $7,000 in back rent, court documents show.

That new bit of medical evidence, along with details that her 14-year-old son did not have any soot in his lungs, is leading investigators to believe that the mother, 32-year-old Leisa Jones, may have killed her children and then set their 302 Nicholas Ave. apartment ablaze.

FROM ALL OUTWARD APPEARANCES, THE FINANCIAL PRESSURES OF RAISING AND TAKING CARE OF A FAMILY BECAME TOO GREAT TO BEAR FOR MS. JONES. WHAT ARE THE LESSONS LEARNED AND THE TEACHABLE MOMENTS GAINED BEHIND SUCH A TRAGIC LOSS OF LIFE? http://www.silive.com/northshore/index.ssf/2010/07/new_evidence_points_to_mom_in.html