Doctors at the Eric Williams Medical Science Centre, Mt Hope, yesterday began a psychiatric evaluation on the 28-year-old suspect accused of killing six-year-old Keyana Cumberbatch.Medical staff at the institution also refused to release the suspect, who is asthmatic, to the police yesterday, stating that his chest had not cleared up. He was expected to appear in court yesterday but doctors at the hospital did not give the all clear for his release.
The man has high blood pressure and is still suffering the effects of an asthma attack, sources said. He suffered the attack last Thursday while at the La Horquetta Police Station and has been warded ever since.That night he was ordered to be charged with Cumberbatch's murder by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard SC.
His attorney Fareed Ali yesterday told the T&T Guardian his client has been handcuffed to the bed by his right hand, forcing him to do all tasks with his left. He added that was a form of torture for his client who is right handed.Ali also raised concerns about his client's picture circulating via the social media even though he has not been charged with any offence.Police are now investigating how the picture managed to get onto the social media, since the suspect has been in the care of police since November 25.
Cumberbatch went missing on November 25. She was last seen leaving her Maloney Gardens, D'Abadie, home en route to her grandmother's apartment one building away. Her decomposing body was found three days later in her apartment, inside a plastic bag in a barrel next to her mother Simone Williams's bed.Cumberbatch was hit in the head so severely that her skull was cracked. She was then sexually assaulted, an autopsy report revealed.
Last Wednesday, Cumberbatch was buried in a closed casket ceremony at the Council of Elders Spiritual Shouter Baptist Empowerment Hall, off the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, D'Abadie. She was buried at Crown Street public cemetery, Tacarigua.