A one-year-old boy was found dead in the latrine of a Maracas Valley, St Joseph, home yesterday hours after a close male relative of the boy telephoned the police and claimed the child had been abducted by three men.
The horror story began around 1 a.m., when the boy’s relative telephoned Maracas Valley police, stating he (the boy) had been kidnapped.
The 26-year-old man told officers that around 12.30 a.m. he was at his Santa Rita Trace home, located at the end of the Maracas Royal Road, with the child, Jacob Monroe.
He claimed three gunmen broke through his front door and demanded he hand over a gun they said he had. The man told officers he did not know what gun they were talking about. The man said the gunmen then made him slit both his wrists and swallow a cup of pitch oil.
The man said the gunmen then grabbed little Jacob and fled the scene.
Maracas Valley police took the man to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, where was immediately treated for the slits to his wrists as well as the ingestion of the pitch oil. Police said he lost a lot of blood.
Later yesterday morning, a team of officers from the Maracas Valley Police Station and the St Joseph Police Station went back to the house to seek more evidence.
The Express was on the scene yesterday and witnessed one of the detectives telling his colleagues he found the man’s story “funny” and, fearing the worst, the first thing he opted to do was check the outhouse.
There, at the bottom of the pit wrapped in a burgundy-coloured piece of cloth, was the child’s tiny body.
Around 2.30 p.m., Monroe’s mother, Sherice Monroe, who lives in a village near Tyrico Bay off the North Coast Road, Maracas, arrived on the scene accompanied by her mother.
She was not allowed to speak to reporters and was kept in a police vehicle as detectives scoured the area.
Police said when they realised they were dealing with a possible murder and not a kidnapping, two officers were immediately sent to guard the boy’s male relative, who is now the prime suspect.
Neighbours told the Express the man lived in the area almost all his life, but they began seeing Sherice Monroe in the area “a couple of months ago”.
Most of the neighbours knew her face, but not her name.
As the news quickly made its way through the tight-knit community, several residents gathered near the scene.
They lamented incidents like this did not occur in their community, while several commented that whoever killed the baby may have been possessed.
“That’s real devil ting,” they were heard telling each other.
Homicide Bureau detectives are continuing investigations.
Source-Trinidad Express.
