An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A rou­tine au­top­sy on a child who was be­lieved to have choked to death on the week­end was halt­ed mid­way yes­ter­day, af­ter the pathol­o­gist dis­cov­ered marks of vi­o­lence on the body and or­dered a full-scale au­top­sy.

Mean­while, the hunt for a close male rel­a­tive con­tin­ued, as in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve he may be able to as­sist with the case.

The four-year-old girl, who lived with rel­a­tives at Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, was re­port­ed­ly tak­en to the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal on Oc­to­ber 9, af­ter she was found un­re­spon­sive at home.

De­spite at­tempts by med­ical per­son­nel to re­sus­ci­tate her up­on ar­rival, she was de­clared dead.

Nei­ther the male rel­a­tive nor the girl’s bi­o­log­i­cal par­ents had been lo­cat­ed up to yes­ter­day.

Ini­tial re­ports claimed the girl choked on a mar­ble and died.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was told the girl’s body was sent to the mor­tu­ary at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, and it was dur­ing an au­top­sy yes­ter­day that the de­ci­sion was tak­en to re­fer the body to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Com­plex, St James, for a de­tailed post-mortem.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials said marks of vi­o­lence were dis­cov­ered all over the body, and punc­ture wounds were found on the neck.

A se­nior Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion of­fi­cial said in­ves­ti­ga­tors in­ten­si­fied ef­forts to find the girl’s rel­a­tives yes­ter­day and will be re­turn­ing to the area to­day to con­duct in­ter­views.