An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As the po­lice probe in­to the sud­den death of in­fant Jer­el Bains of Beetham Gar­dens con­tin­ues, a sec­ond ba­by has died af­ter be­ing left in the care of a babysit­ter in Cou­va. 

In­ves­ti­ga­tions be­gan in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to the death of Xaeziel Glas­gow, two, of Mon De­sir Road, South Oropouche. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the un­re­spon­sive in­fant was brought to the Cou­va Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty by GM­RTT per­son­nel around 8.36 pm on Fri­day.

Ef­forts to re­sus­ci­tate him proved fu­tile, and he was pro­nounced dead at 9.03 pm.

The po­lice were no­ti­fied of the in­ci­dent af­ter doc­tors re­port­ed a swelling on the ba­by’s fore­head. A re­fer­ral has been made for an au­top­sy to be per­formed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, to­mor­row to de­ter­mine the cause of death.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors start­ed prob­ing a 43-year-old Cou­va woman in whose care the in­fant had been left. It was al­leged a male rel­a­tive had cus­tody of the child from June 2 and had re­port­ed­ly gone to the woman’s home around 8 pm on Fri­day to pick up the child and found him un­re­spon­sive.

Emer­gency med­ical per­son­nel were sum­moned and took the child to the hos­pi­tal.

Jer­el was un­re­spon­sive when he was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Thurs­day. The doc­tors not­ed that bruis­es were seen on the ba­by’s chest.