Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Eight-year-old Makeisha May­nard’s life end­ed when she was planassed to death by her fa­ther for a bed­wet­ting in­ci­dent. Her fa­ther, Michael May­nard, was lat­er found hang­ing at their Ca­roni home.

Po­lice said they were told by the girl’s ten-year-old broth­er that Makeisha reg­u­lar­ly wet the bed and on Sat­ur­day night when May­nard woke up to find his pants soaked in urine, he sent the girl to bathe be­fore beat­ing her with a cut­lass. When he re­alised that she was not re­spon­sive, he dressed her, combed her hair and placed her on a bed.

The boy told po­lice his fa­ther was cry­ing and kept say­ing he could not live with him­self for what he did to Makeisha. He then locked him in the house and left promis­ing to re­turn but nev­er did. At about 6 pm on Sun­day, when the boy re­alised his fa­ther had not re­turned, he jumped out of a win­dow and alert­ed neigh­bours.

May­nard was found hang­ing from a tree near his small gal­va­nized shack at Boysie Trace, Kel­ly Vil­lage.

The house was de­stroyed by fire yes­ter­day evening. Po­lice sus­pect ar­son as the rea­son.

Makeisha’s moth­er, Mayso­nia Thomas, said she ran from a life of abuse with May­nard. She claimed that when Makeisha was just six days old, the in­fant was hit on the head dur­ing an in­ci­dent where she was be­ing beat­en by May­nard. She said, as a re­sult, the girl suf­fered de­vel­op­men­tal de­lays.

“I left him when my daugh­ter Makeisha was three months old and my son was three years old,” Thomas said.

She said Makeisha could iden­ti­fy num­bers, colours and shapes but “her brain not con­nect­ing to the hands for her to write.” She said Makeisha and her broth­er lived with their step­fa­ther un­til last year Feb­ru­ary when May­nard took them away.

She claimed she had called their grand­moth­er who told her that she had them.

“I de­cid­ed to leave them there with her be­cause I know she took good care of them be­cause Michael used to abuse them too. I didn’t know that he took them out of school and had them out for al­most a year.

“I guess his fam­i­ly nev­er went for them be­cause he was al­so abu­sive and ag­gres­sive to­wards them too and every­one was afraid of him. It’s on­ly Sun­day night I got the call that Michael beat she for wet­ting the bed,” she said.

Thomas said she was stabbed five years ago and lodged sev­er­al re­ports against May­nard at po­lice sta­tions, in­clud­ing Mor­vant, Ca­roni and CID, but he was nev­er ar­rest­ed.

May­nard’s neigh­bours, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, de­scribed him as a mon­ster and in re­cent days he had been more ag­gres­sive than usu­al and seemed “very frus­trat­ed.”

Makeisha’s broth­er is cur­rent­ly in the care of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and Thomas said she will try her best to re­gain cus­tody of her son.

Fam­i­ly of­fered coun­selling

Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Camille Robin­son-Reg­is yes­ter­day ap­pealed to cit­i­zens who find them­selves un­able to cope with life sit­u­a­tions to seek help. As she ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the May­nard fam­i­ly, she re­vealed that Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices would be con­tact­ing the fam­i­ly to pro­vide coun­selling sup­port.

“Such sup­port con­tin­ues to be made free of charge to in­di­vid­u­als and house­holds. Oth­er ser­vices which pro­vide coun­selling and psy­choso­cial sup­port in­clude the min­istry’s an­nu­al cy­cles of com­mu­ni­ty-based par­ent­ing work­shops that are held across var­i­ous dis­tricts and which are tai­lored to equip par­tic­i­pants with the nec­es­sary knowl­edge, skills and at­ti­tudes to treat with is­sues in­clud­ing ado­les­cence, bul­ly­ing, trends in tech­nol­o­gy, teenage preg­nan­cy and so on,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

Al­so, com­mu­ni­ty out­reach car­a­vans are be­ing held through­out the coun­try, with the next one sched­uled for Pin­to Road, Ari­ma, on Wednes­day.

Robin­son-Reg­is ap­pealed to men, in par­tic­u­lar, to seek out the help they need in rais­ing their chil­dren.

“Is­sues aris­ing out of the fail­ure to man­age anger and in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly preva­lent, and more men are be­ing iden­ti­fied as per­pe­tra­tors,” she said.

The min­is­ter em­pha­sised that in­di­vid­u­als need to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and avail them­selves of the ser­vices they need.