RED FLAGS MISSED IN MALDEN MURDER

Three weeks before Leah Penny was found unresponsive near the bottom of a staircase in her Malden home, a dog leash wrapped around her neck, her boyfriend was charged with pushing the mom to the ground in front of their two young children after he accused her of cheating on him.

At his May 31 arraignment, prosecutors never requested bail or a hearing to determine whether Ryan Power, 32, was too dangerous to be set free. Instead, they asked Judge Matthew Machera to order that he stay away from Penny, 31 — a request the judge granted — and Power was released on his own recognizance.

On Wednesday he was charged with her murder.

“I think that was a very big injustice to let him go,” Penny’s mother, Patty Duble, said yesterday from her North Carolina home. “They should have held him. ... She did not deserve to die such a violent death. The children are devastated they will never be able to see their mother again.”

When asked why prosecutors didn’t attempt to keep Power in custody last month, Meghan Kelly, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, said she would look into the matter but never responded with an answer.

Toni Troop, a spokeswoman for Jane Doe Inc., an advocacy group for victims of domestic and sexual violence, said domestic violence murders are among the most predictable homicides, but “no one system is foolproof.”

“There are red flags but, sadly, none of us wants to believe it can end this way,” Troop said. “There usually isn’t one magic answer here. It’s about having all of those systems have their radar up. Tragedies like this remind us that we all can do better.”

Next week, Duble will arrive in Massachusetts to attend a custody hearing for her grandchildren and head to the coroner’s office to identify her daughter’s body.

“Never as a mother did I think,” she said, “I’d have to say those words.”