Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

Mayso­nia Thomas, on Tues­day, left the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre dis­ap­point­ed and con­fused as to why no re­sult has been con­firmed as to the cause of her daugh­ter, Makeisha’s death.

Thomas ad­mit­ted that she was a bit con­fused as to why no con­fir­ma­tion but said she was on­ly told that she would be con­tact­ed via phone from foren­sic of­fi­cials as there seemed to be com­pli­ca­tions and need for fur­ther foren­sic tests to be car­ried out on her daugh­ter’s body.

“I re­al­ly don’t know what’s hap­pen­ing but I’m just wait­ing on their call now, “ Thomas said.

Mean­while, she promised that she is go­ing to “fight” for cus­tody of her sec­ond son with Michael May­nard, who she said has been re­leased in­to the cus­tody of the boy’s pa­ter­nal grand­moth­er.

She is hop­ing that by the end of the week she will have her son back in her care.

May­nard re­port­ed­ly had beat­en their daugh­ter, eight years, to death af­ter she uri­nat­ed the bed while asleep on Sat­ur­day night with her fa­ther at his small gal­vanised shack on Sat­ur­day night. May­nard was found hang­ing from a tree next to the shack on Sun­day evening.

May­nard’s rel­a­tives are claim­ing that Thomas ne­glect­ed her chil­dren and re­fused to pick them up when­ev­er they were by May­nard’s moth­er and/or oth­er rel­a­tives of his.

This claim was ver­i­fied in a state­ment is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice which start­ed that on April 6, 2019, a re­port was made about threats and child ne­glect. This was made by Ce­les­tine Oliv­er, the sis­ter of May­nard.

May­nard’s el­dest sis­ter told the Guardian Me­dia that she is blam­ing Thomas for what hap­pened to Makeisha. She said Thomas was the one to have come for­ward to save her chil­dren from abuse by the fa­ther by giv­ing the grand­moth­er per­mis­sion to have full cus­tody of the chil­dren, “but she nev­er came...just to get a taxi to come she nev­er did. I wait­ed long hours at the po­lice sta­tion and she nev­er came...from April to No­vem­ber last year I tried reach­ing out to her be­cause if she came she would have giv­en per­mis­sion for the grand­moth­er to have them and Michael would have no rights then to come and take them away from us. I blame her.”

Thomas’ sis­ter al­so lay the blame on her for not go­ing to her chil­dren’s res­cue, she claimed that Thomas knew the chil­dren were be­ing abused by the fa­ther.

But, Thomas re­fut­ed the al­le­ga­tions cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly say­ing that she nev­er and would have nev­er ne­glect­ed Makeisha and her broth­er, “I have sev­en chil­dren and I have nev­er ne­glect­ed them...I was pre­vent­ed from see­ing my two chil­dren with Michael by his rel­a­tives, “ Thomas said.

“When I would call or mes­sage to find out how they are do­ing I would al­ways be told ‘they good...they bet­ter of than you and me.’ If I try to find out how they are do­ing in school they would say good and that’s that. They nev­er want­ed me to be around my own chil­dren and to have them, “ she added.

The TTPS’ state­ment did con­firm that two re­ports were made against May­nard.

It start­ed that on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2011, May­nard was ar­rest­ed and charged with as­sault­ing Thomas, and his eight-month-old daugh­ter. That mat­ter re­mained pend­ing for years.

The TTPS not­ed that WPC Atkin­son of the CPU spoke to Steven May­nard (un­cle) and Rashi­da Munroe, “at the time, two chil­dren were liv­ing with their grand­moth­er at Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni. The chil­dren de­nied that they were beat­en and there were no marks of vi­o­lence on the bod­ies.

Checks with the CID al­so re­vealed that no such re­ports were made.”

The TTPS al­so dis­closed that May­nard was out on bail on a rape charge.

“In 2018, a re­port of rape was made against May­nard. He was ar­rest­ed and charged, and re­leased on bail. As part of his bail con­di­tions, he had to re­port to the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion once per week. That mat­ter was al­so pend­ing, “ the state­ment read.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, al­so in the re­lease, re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that when they see some­thing, they must say some­thing, and not wait un­til some­one is killed.

Grif­fith point­ed out that “every­one in the vil­lage, fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues claim to know that there has been abuse for years. Two re­ports were made and they were in­ves­ti­gat­ed.” More on Page 7