Police have detained the young mother of an eight-month-old child whose decomposing remains were discovered in a pit latrine in the Parika Façade, East Bank Essequibo area on Thursday evening.
Police, in a statement yesterday, said that acting on information several ranks went to the area around 6 pm on Thursday and retrieved the corpse of Unita Charles.
Persons in the area told Stabroek News that the mother of the infant moved into the squatting area, located about five minutes from the Parika Public Road, less than a month ago. They said that the woman, who is between the ages of 18 and 20, lived in Lethem in Region Nine but moved to have an operation performed on the baby. The girl was born with a lower back deformity.
A neighbour noted that a young man from the area and the young woman struck up a relationship and the man was working to have the surgery performed on the child. The couple lived close to the Public Road at Parika over the past several months but subsequently moved into the squatting area in August.
A neighbour related that the woman told residents that her companion left for the interior, where he was working with a miner to save enough money for the child’s operation. However, earlier this week, neighbours noted that the young woman was not “mingling much” with other residents and on Monday afternoon they became suspicious about the absence of the child. A neighbour recalled hearing the child crying for several hours early Monday morning and sometime after 10am, the mother was seen leaving the home “dress up.” She said on Tuesday the woman told another resident that the baby was in the care of her companion’s relatives at the Parika Public Road while on Wednesday she told another resident that she had sent the child back to Region Nine. Sometime around 4pm on Thursday afternoon, residents began to question the young woman again about the whereabouts of the child and during this time a neighbour peered into the woman’s one bedroom home to see where the child was.
It was while this was being done that another resident observed several dogs in the latrine, close to the woman’s home. A resident noted that a strong stench emanated from the latrine. Later, using a flashlight, a resident saw what appeared to be a headless corpse, wrapped in a hammock, in the pit.
A passing police patrol was stopped and the ranks later retrieved the corpse from the latrine while the baby’s mother was taken into custody. Last evening, residents were still horrified at the gruesome discovery and according to a neighbour, “she coulda give the baby to one a we.” She said that a tube had been attached to the child to enable her to defecate. A neighbour added that the woman admitted that she wanted to give-up, as she could not source the money for the child’s surgery.
The mother remained in police custody in the West Demerara area last evening.
