Sascha Wil­son

The men­tal­ly chal­lenged man who con­fessed to throw­ing “the child in the riv­er” days af­ter two-year-old Ki­mani Fran­cis’ body was found in the Guapo Riv­er is no longer in po­lice cus­tody.

Based on in­struc­tions from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, the man was al­lowed to leave the Point Fortin Po­lice Sta­tion with his rel­a­tive on Thurs­day night pend­ing fur­ther in­quiries.

Lit­tle Ki­mani wan­dered away from his home at Tenth Street Ex­ten­sion, Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, on May 9.

A mas­sive land, aer­i­al and riv­er search end­ed the fol­low­ing day af­ter his body was found in the Guapo Riv­er about mile away from his home.

Two days lat­er, around 1.40 pm, the 41-year-old man, of Techi­er Vil­lage, an out­pa­tient of a psy­chi­atric clin­ic, walked in­to the Point Fortin Po­lice Sta­tion and shout­ed, “Aye, I who throw the child in the riv­er.”

When the po­lice asked him the name of the child and the lo­ca­tion of the riv­er, he said, “Me eh know, but ah giv­ing up my­self, al­lyuh can’t say I eh give up my­self, ah throw the child in the riv­er.”

While in cus­tody, two Le­gal Aid at­tor­neys were ap­point­ed to rep­re­sent him but they had is­sues tak­ing in­struc­tions as he was in­co­her­ent.

Mean­while, po­lice are al­so await­ing in­struc­tions on whether to prof­fer a charge of neg­li­gence against a rel­a­tive.

Ki­mani was at home with his moth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives when he walked out of his home wear­ing on­ly a di­a­per and bare­foot. His moth­er on­ly re­alised he was miss­ing when a po­lice of­fi­cer came to the front door about a half an hour lat­er.

The po­lice were con­tact­ed by Zoi An­ic­ka Quan Kep, a neigh­bour, af­ter she saw the tod­dler on the road. She said she tried to fol­low him, but she could not catch up to him due to a med­ical con­di­tion and be­ing over­weight.

She was even­tu­al­ly forced to move out of her home af­ter re­ceiv­ing threats by vil­lagers who ac­cused her of not try­ing to save Ki­mani.

An au­top­sy on May 13 at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre list­ed his death as drown­ing. Ki­mani’s par­ents paid for a sec­ond au­top­sy, but they have not dis­closed the re­sults to the me­dia.

Ki­mani’s fu­ner­al ser­vice was held on May 20.