A male relative of 23-month-old Khristha Knutt and her mother are in police custody after the child was electrocuted in what police believe was a botched attempt to resuscitate her.
Police have also arrested two teenagers who were in the house at the time the child was dying.
According to police reports, the child was electrocuted after the relative used live wires to try to resuscitate her, after she was found unresponsive around 2.30 am yesterday. He reportedly cut the wires from a fan and attempted to shock the child. When the child was not revived she was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
However, hospital sources said the child’s body was already cold when she was brought in for treatment. The T&T Guardian was informed that were it not for the suspicion of the Casuality Department’s House Officer, Dr Janet Charles, the baby’s death would not have been fully investigated.
Sources said Charles noticed what appeared to be scratches near the child’s nipples and overheard a mortuary attendant saying that someone had tried to resuscitate her at home. Charles examined the body closer and saw what appeared to be rectangular shaped impressions on the child’s chest. As a result, hospital authorities called in the police and a forensic examination was ordered.
A female relative who spoke with the T&T Guardian at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, yesterday, said the child had the cold and could not breathe properly. She added that little Khristha, who lived with her mother and other relatives at Rock City, Laventille, stopped breathing at some stage and relatives contacted the Emergency Health Services.
The relative said they decided to try the live wires in a bid to revive her and for a period it seemed to be working as the child was momentarily responding. However, the child again fell unconscious.
Speaking with the media, however, the child’s grandmother, Marlene Rawlins, gave a different version. Although admitting she was not at the house when the child died, Rawlins said for sometime she had a “gut feeling” that something was wrong with the home environment of the child, as little Khristha would always run away from the male relative.
“That man is not the father. He’s been staying there for sometime but to me the baby always crying and running away from him.
“If the baby afraid (of) you and running from you, then you must see what going on. I wasn’t there so I don’t know what was going on. The report said it’s like someone hit her like about three times but I don’t know because I wasn’t there, that is what the doctor said. It come like someone murder her,” Rawlins said.
According to the autopsy report, done by forensic pathologist Dr Hughvon Des Vignes, the child died as a result of blunt cranio cerebral trauma and electrocution. Evidence of injuries to three separate places to the child’s head was found. The child’s brain was also swollen and there was also evidence of her choking on food.
“They kill my grandchild you know. Why you electrocute my child? That’s my granddaughter. I always tell my daughter I don’t want this man in my house because I was always afraid he would abuse her. I got the vibes. She would get vex when I tell her that but this was what I was telling her,” Rawlins said.
She added: “She with that man only four months now. She barely knows that man but I was praying last night for my granddaughter and my daughter came and told me what happen. I told them I just hope none of them killed my grandchild.
“I just talked plain. I will never feel good about that. Especially in my house. You see how life is. It’s very sad.”
Rawlins said she used to warn the child’s stepfather about his interactions with her grandchild, telling him that whatever he was doing to make the child be afraid of him was “not good in the eyesight of the Lord.
“I just sorry for my granddaughter to see she had to go through this,” Rawlins said.
adding that now she wants justice for her grandchild, whom she said was promised to God to be raised by her in accordance with his teachings.
On her Facebook page yesterday, the mother of the child posted pictures of her dead baby and threatened to commit suicide. She was advised against this by her Facebook friends, who all expressed shock at the child’s death and gave words of encouragement to the mother.
Homicide officers are continuing investigations.
Biological dad wants answers
Ernest Knutt, 45, biological father of toddler Khristha Knutt, is calling for justice as he believes that there was more to his child’s death.
Knutt, who live at Five Rivers, Arouca, appeared on CNC3’s Crime Watch show last evening. He told host Ian Alleyne he was contacted at about 3 am by hospital officials and later told his daughter died after a relative used 110 voltage live wires to try to resuscitate her after she was found unresponsive.
“This is all too strange because the mother, I believe, was not telling me everything. I felt there was something more to it when the grandmother said that someone has to pay for this. I really want to know what went on with my child,” he said.
Knutt said when Khristha was six months old he separated from her mother but always kept a close relationship with his child.
He said he was imprisoned for seven years and was released in 2010 and since the birth of his sixth child, Khristha, he had turned his life totally around from the life of crime.
"My daughter make me change. I left all things behind because of her and now for her to go like this ... I need answers,” Knutt said.