A 13-year-old mute Essequibo boy has died under unclear circumstances and his mother is denying claims that she is responsible.
Travis Benjamin was discovered dead yesterday morning in the corner of his small house at Little Red Village, Onderneeming Sand Pit, Essequibo Coast, where he lived with his mother, Veronica Benjamin, and two younger siblings.
Veronica Benjamin yesterday denied that she beat her son to death. She told Stabroek News that she did beat the sick boy on Monday night with a belt, while explaining that the noise he was making was hurting her head.
“He was making nuff noise, so I got up and give him couple lashes with a belt,” she said.
In relating what had transpired, the woman said her son had a fever and diarrhoea and was crying the entire night.
She added she did not want to take the boy to get any medical attention, since she had already concluded that he would have died. “I know he would have dead because he was making a lot of unusual sounds,” she said.
Police will have to await a post-mortem examination to determine how the boy died, Police Commissioner (ag) Leroy Brumell told Stabroek News last evening.
But he noted that no marks of violence were found on the child’s body.
He explained that the child was said to be ill and ranks in Essequibo told him that they had received no reports that he was beaten.
But the Minister of Human Services Jennifer Webster said that after learning of the incident from the media, she was told that the child had complained of feeling unwell and was subsequently beaten to death.
She noted that officers from the ministry will be travelling into the area to commence investigations. She said that she understands that two other children are with the mother, who has been released by the police.
Police at Suddie Police Station were informed of the boy’s death and later took the child’s body to the Suddie mortuary.
His mother was asked to make a statement at the station and she was later released.
A resident said she was alerted by the cries which started around midnight until the wee hours of the morning. The resident said that Benjamin beat her son regularly.
She added that the woman had been a patient of the psychiatric ward at the Suddie Public Hospital.
One of Benjamin’s brothers, who visited her home after learning of his nephew’s death, called on the police to perform a post-mortem examination to fully determine the cause of death, since something was not right.
The single parent mother usually receives public assistance to take care of her children.
