Derek Achong

The grue­some dis­cov­ery of the dead bod­ies of a man and his two tod­dlers at the side of a trace in Matu­ra at 6 am yes­ter­day morn­ing rocked the qui­et east coast vil­lage.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, a pump­kin farmer found the bod­ies near his gar­den in Mo­ra Trace, off the vil­lage's main road.

A bot­tle of her­bi­cide be­lieved to be Gramox­one was on the ground near them and po­lice sus­pect it may have been a case of mur­der/sui­cide, in which Bar­ry Kari­math, 34, poi­soned his two-year old daugh­ter Keyan­na May­ers and 10-month old son Omari May­ers.Kari­math, po­lice said, lives in the South and the chil­dren lived with their moth­er, 24-year-old Ok­il­ia May­ers, in Barataria.

Kari­math had cus­tody of the chil­dren on Sat­ur­day. He owned a Black Maz­da 323 but the ve­hi­cle was nowhere in sight. How he end­ed up in Matu­ra is yet to be known.The farmer said around 9.30 pm Sat­ur­day night, he went to his "joupa" (hut) in his gar­den to spend the night and saw Kari­math stand­ing near the trace with Keyan­na and Omari.Cu­ri­ous, he asked what he was do­ing there and Kari­math replied he had paid a woman $6,000 for a bush bath and he was wait­ing for her.

The farmer said he re­tired for the night and when he rose at six the next morn­ing, he saw the dead bod­ies of the man and two chil­dren and called the po­lice.The po­lice found Kari­math's cell­phone and called the chil­dren's moth­er who said she had tried call­ing him af­ter mid­night but he had not an­swered.She said she had texted him and he sent back a mes­sage say­ing he was go­ing to kill him­self and the chil­dren.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Ok­il­ia said she did not know where Kari­math was and planned to call the po­lice in the morn­ing.Coun­cil­lor for the Matu­ra area Ter­ry Ron­don said the whole vil­lage, in­clud­ing chil­dren, trekked to the area to see the bod­ies of Kari­math, Keyana and Omari yes­ter­day morn­ing.He said he can­not re­mem­ber a mur­der like this in­volv­ing chil­dren oc­cur­ring in the area and said the young peo­ple are trau­ma­tised.

"I am ar­rang­ing some coun­selling ses­sions for them. There is too much anger in this coun­try." Ron­don ap­pealed to men to "take it down."Head of the Child Pro­tec­tion Task Force Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att was at a loss for words when the Guardian called her for a com­ment on the tragedy."What a tragedy. What a waste of life. It's chil­dren two years old and ten months. Your heart bleeds for them."Ma­habir said the Task Force had been dis­cussing whether a fa­ther should be giv­en cus­tody of chil­dren when par­ents are sep­a­rat­ed.

"Very rarely do you hear a child be­ing killed or abused when the moth­er has cus­tody. It's usu­al­ly when the fa­ther has them."I don't know how we can pre­vent the fa­ther from tak­ing them? It is the court that or­ders cus­tody. You can't ask the court to be more care­ful."If, over and over again, noth­ing hap­pened to the chil­dren when the fa­ther had them, how can you tell that one day he would snap? All over the world there are peo­ple who are be­com­ing men­tal­ly un­sta­ble."

Ma­habir-Wy­att re­called the case of the 14-year-old Bran­don Har­g­reaves who re­port­ed­ly died from a fall while play-fight­ing with an­oth­er boy at St Michael's School for Boys in Diego Mar­tin last Tues­day night.His moth­er who lives abroad wants the school to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed."This is the same moth­er who locked him a dog ken­nel naked," Ma­habir-Wy­att not­ed.