State Senator Steve Santarsiero’s bill commemorates first-grader Kayden Mancuso from Pennsbury, who was killed by her father five years ago.
Aug 16, 2023 at 4:11 pm EDT | Updated August 16, 2023 4:14 PM EDT
LOWER MAKEFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA — Marking the recent five-year anniversary of the death of a Pennsbury first-grader at the hands of her father, a Bucks County lawmaker is pushing for a bill to better protect children in custody situations.
State Senator Steve Santarsiero on August 6 marked the anniversary of Kayden Mancuso’s death at the hands of her biological father during an unsupervised court-ordered visit.
Subscribe to
“I am proud to join Senator Lisa Baker again in supporting Kayden’s legislation and calling for its passage to protect children in contentious custody cases. Kayden’s law would ensure that in any custody battle, the child’s health and safety is paramount,” the senator said.
The bill was supported by both parties at previous meetings.
“I will work with my colleagues in the Senate to pass this important piece of legislation this fall and to pass Kayden’s bill,” he added.
Santarsiero said Kayden’s law is a rewrite of the state custody law to better protect children in custody situations.
The bill stems from a case in Lower Makefield Township in 2018 when Mancuso, a first grader at Edgewood Elementary School in the Pennsbury School District, was the subject of a custody battle between her mother and biological father that ended in her murder.
The court granted the father an unsupervised visit despite his history of violence, Santarsiero said, and over a weekend in August 2018 he murdered her and committed suicide while he was with her father in an unsupervised situation in Philadelphia .
“The bill named in her honor would make it clear going forward that the safety of the child is the primary concern of any court reviewing a custody battle,” Santarsiero said. “And when there is a threat of violence or abusive behavior, the most the court can order is supervised custody, with professional custody being preferred so that a child can never be placed in the situation Kayden was in.”
Two years ago, the bill passed the Senate but failed to move forward in the House of Representatives.
With Democrats now in control of the House of Representatives, Santarsiero said he hopes to get the bill back out of the Senate, through the House of Representatives, and to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s desk for signature bring.
Patch author Jeff Werner contributed to this story.
Comments are closed.