Autopsies to be done on poisoned Perth siblings

Autopsies are expected to be done tomorrow on the bodies of four-year-old Odacia Cadogan and her sixteen-month-old brother Jabar Cadogan who died on Thursday evening after they were allegedly fed poison by their mother.

The children’s father Jabari Cadogan arrived in the country yesterday and instead of migrating with his children, he will now be burying them. “He making preparations for the funeral but after the post mortem tomorrow, he will decide when he is burying them,” a relative told Stabroek News.

The man added that his nephew was advised by his grandmother not to visit the children’s mother Awena Rutherford, who is under police guard at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). It is believed that she also ingested poison.

Odacia Cadogan
Odacia Cadogan
Jabar Cadogan
Jabar Cadogan

On Thursday, Rutherford picked her children up from their aunt at Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara at approximately 5 pm and travelled to their home at Perth, Mahaicony. Relatives said that they received a phone call an hour later and were informed that Jabar and Odacia were being treated at the Mahaicony Hospital.

Jabar succumbed at the Mahaicony Hospital while his sister and their mother were rushed to the GPH. Odacia passed away some time after 10pm while being treated by doctors.

Meantime, Rutherford’s condition has not improved. “It is no better. She is complaining that she feeling weak,” an aunt said. The woman said that Rutherford remains under police guard and is not entertaining any visitors but her. When she is discharged from the hospital, Rutherford is expected to face murder charges.

Many of her friends expressed surprise that Rutherford who always spoke lovingly about her children would commit such an act. On March 18 on a social media website, Rutherford was quoted as saying, “My kids are my world, without them I am nothing.”

Her grandmother Ursula Rutherford said that she was a well brought up child and that her actions had shocked the entire family.