Three persons are in police custody in connection with the murder of eight-year-old Isaiah Smartt, whose lifeless body was pulled out of a trench in Sophia last week, Commander of ‘A’ Division Marlon Chapman said.
Smartt, a pupil of the F E Pollard Primary School was pulled out of a trench located a short distance away from his Block ‘E’ Sophia home last week Tuesday.
He had been missing for a day and family members made several searches but came up empty handed.
The police began to treat Smartt’s death as a murder following the results of a post-mortem examination which revealed that he died as a result of asphyxiation due to bronchoaspiration compounded by compression injuries to the neck.
The police had previously informed this newspaper that the discovery was made by a cousin of the dead boy who saw his body floating under a coat.
His cousin Shane De Mattos had seen the blue raincoat in the drain and when he took a stick and raised it, discovered the lifeless body of Smartt in the trench, which had about three feet of water.
Just before Smartt went missing last Monday, he was in the company of his sister Rashida Stoll at her residence. Smartt was playing in Stoll’s room under her supervision but she fell asleep, and it is believed he left the room sometime after.
She had told police that after she awakened last Monday afternoon and did not see him, she made checks but was unable to locate him.
The boy’s mother Joycelyn Tickett had told Stabroek News that around 1 pm last Monday, she, Stoll, Smartt and another relative were at home. “They [Stoll and the relative] went over by me and we did just done watch African Mood [a Nollywood movie] and they say they going home and Isaiah wanted to go with them but I tell he no let he stay with me and they say no lef he let me come and he went,” Tickett had explained.
She had said the trio left her home and went over to Stoll’s house which is located a few houses from hers. “My great nephew wake up and he see some beads on the ground and some paper. When he buss the back door he see the calaloo he did going and pick cut down and he seh, ‘Isaiah cut down the calaloo I now going fuh cook and he done gone through the short cut fuh go by he father,” Tickett further explained.
She said without sensing that something was amiss, she had gone over to her great nephew’s residence later the afternoon when they related to her what had occurred.
According to Tickett, it was customary for Isaiah to visit his father’s home every day. She said it was not until an umbrella was discovered near the trench that they began to feel something was wrong. Her son’s lifeless body was later discovered in the trench.
One of the suspects, a woman, was taken into custody, after relatives had related her suspicious behaviour following the discovery of the child’s body.
