The police yesterday launched a murder investigation into the death of eight-year-old Isaiah Smartt following the results of an autopsy which revealed that he died of asphyxiation due to bronco aspiration compounded by compression injuries to the neck.
The autopsy was performed by Government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh.
Stabroek News was told that given the results of the autopsy, Smartt’s death was now being treated as a murder.
The body of the F E Pollard Primary School pupil was pulled out of a trench located a short distance away from his Block ‘E’ Sophia home on Tuesday afternoon. He had been missing for a day.
Up to yesterday afternoon, a resident of the area was being questioned by the police. The woman, relatives said, was taken into custody after they related her suspicious behaviour following the discovery of the child’s body. “We never had any problem or so with her that would lead to this but right now she is the only person we could suspect,” a relative said.
The police had previously informed this newspaper that a cousin of the dead boy had discovered his body floating under a raincoat.
Reports had revealed that the child went missing on Monday afternoon and several searches for him proved futile.
His cousin Shane De Mattos had seen the blue raincoat in the drain and when he took a stick and raised it, discovered the lifeless body of Smartt in the trench, which had about three feet of water.
Just before Smartt went missing on Monday, he was in the company of his sister Rashida Stoll at her residence. Smartt was playing in Stoll’s room under her supervision but she fell asleep, and it is believed he left the room sometime after.
She had told police that after she awakened on Monday afternoon and did not see him, she made checks but was unable to locate him.
The boy’s mother Joycelyn Tickett told Stabroek News yesterday that the family is calling for a thorough investigation. “We want the story go far because he was an innocent child. He ain’t do nobody nothing fuh them do he something like this,” she said.
The woman explained that on Monday around 1 pm, she, Stoll, Smartt and another relative were at home. “They [Stoll and the relative] went over by me and we did just done watch African Mood [a Nollywood movie] and they say they going home and Isaiah wanted to go with them but I tell he no let he stay with me and they say no lef he let me come and he went,” Tickett explained.
She said the trio left her home and went over to Stoll’s house which is located a few houses from hers. “My great nephew wake up and he see some beads on the ground and some paper. When he buss the back door he see the calaloo he did going and pick cut down and he seh, ‘Isaiah cut down the calaloo I now going fuh cook and he done gone through the short cut fuh go by he father,’” Tickett further explained.
She said without sensing that something was amiss, she had gone over to her great nephew’s residence later the afternoon when they related to her what had occurred.
According to Tickett, it was customary for Isaiah to visit his father’s home every day. “He father didn’t see he after Father’s Day, so he mussy think he deh home by me all the time. And we think he gone over by he father so we ain’t call, we ain’t do nothing,” she explained.
She said it was not until an umbrella was discovered near the trench that they began to feel something was wrong. Her son’s lifeless body was later discovered in the trench.
