(Trinidad Guardian) Three weeks before strangling seven-year-old McKenzie Hope Rechier, the 25-year-old suspect confided in a neighbour that she planned to kill the child and herself.
Palo Seco mother Michelle Alexander told Sunday Guardian she quickly sought the assistance of police and other public officials to help the suspect who battled mental problems. However, that help never came.
Horror struck the community on Saturday morning as the visions of McKenzie’s frail and lifeless body now haunt the minds of relatives and police who found her on a soiled mattress inside the 10×10 ft wooden shack that she and the suspect called home.
“When you are in big places, and you have money, they come and talk to you. But these are poor people in these areas, so we do not get assistance when it is needed,” Alexander said.
Shortly after midnight Saturday, Santa Flora police, WPC Monsegue and PC Aguillera responded to a report of an incident involving a child at Number 7 Road, Palo Seco. There they met the suspect and others. Inside a dirty room, they found McKenzie lying in a foetal position with a reddish mark on her neck and her face swollen. They arrested the suspect who remained at the Santa Flora Police Station on Saturday.
A report stated that the suspect left home around 4 pm on Friday after calling a friend to take her to a grocery. She told her friend she wanted to visit Imam Yasin at a Claxton Bay mosque. After arriving around 10.20 pm, the suspect told Yasin that she had strangled McKenzie at home. Yasin took her back home around 12.30 am yesterday and contacted the police.
Speaking near her home, Alexander said McKenzie often came to her house to play. However, she realised something was wrong with McKenzie and the suspect’s behaviours. When she inquired, the suspect told her: “Allyuh would not see us just now. We would not be here soon.”
Suspecting that things were serious, Alexander pleaded with her to speak out. The suspect twice confided in Alexander that she thought about killing the child and herself.
“She told me she had this feeling that she wanted to kill herself and the child. I asked ‘What did this child ever do to you? What did that child do to you that you want to take her life? I said she is our future. She could be a lawyer, doctor, or police. Why would you take that from her?’”
The suspect said she was tired of people using and abusing her.
“She never told me about anybody beating her or anything like that. She said she was always putting out everything for everybody, and she was not getting back anything in return.”
Alexander said she and relatives took the suspect to church, and pastors prayed for her. Alexander said her mood progressed, but in recent days, she regressed with a look of surrender and was dressing poorly.