An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

An autis­tic teenag­er who was ac­cus­tomed to wan­der­ing out of his home at Agos­ti­ni Street, St Joseph, and in­to his neigh­bours’ yards, drowned in a swim­ming pool there yes­ter­day.

An­to­nio Ben­jamin, 17, was de­clared dead at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope.

Po­lice said the home­own­er alert­ed them at 9.15 am that the teen was seen float­ing in her swim­ming pool, which was lo­cat­ed to the back of the gat­ed prop­er­ty.

An­to­nio’s life­less body was lat­er pulled from the wa­ter by Emer­gency Health Per­son­nel.

Shak­en by the drown­ing yes­ter­day, the home­own­er com­plained about the lack of ac­tion on the part of the au­thor­i­ties, as well as the teen’s par­ents in keep­ing a clos­er eye on him.

The woman, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, claimed she re­port­ed An­to­nio’s tres­pass­ing to the po­lice back in Jan­u­ary, Feb­ru­ary and March, yet noth­ing had been done. She claimed she even turned to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty for help in keep­ing An­to­nio off her prop­er­ty to no avail.

An­oth­er home­own­er said, “The par­ents were asked to keep a clos­er eye on him be­fore, as he would usu­al­ly be seen wan­der­ing through the area, go­ing on­to peo­ple’s prop­er­ties.”

“He didn’t go to steal or any­thing, but he seemed to be at­tract­ed to that pool,” the man added.

Po­lice said An­to­nio would have climbed over the front wall be­fore mak­ing his way along the side of the house to the back­yard, where the pool is lo­cat­ed.

At the teen’s house yes­ter­day, raised voic­es were heard com­ing from in­side as a close male rel­a­tive de­mand­ed an­swers from those who had been “watch­ing” him.

The teen’s moth­er, Maria Mar­tinez, said her son was on med­ica­tion which was meant to keep him calm and lu­cid. Weep­ing open­ly, the moth­er said de­spite his in­abil­i­ty to speak prop­er­ly, An­to­nio was a lov­ing child who knew how to com­mu­ni­cate with her and the fam­i­ly.

Mar­tinez said her son was well known for walk­ing around the neigh­bour­hood, and would some­times make his way to the near­by shop where they would give him snacks. Asked why he kept go­ing to the house with the pool, the moth­er said he loved to bathe.

His fa­ther, who did not want to be named, said he of­ten had to run to bring him back from wher­ev­er he was, in­clud­ing as far as Tu­na­puna on one oc­ca­sion to fetch An­to­nio.

The two said, “He not in his right mind but he was a good child.”

An­to­nio cel­e­brat­ed his 17th birth­day on Au­gust 4.