Trinidad mom released on bail for daughter’s drowning

Isialia Sterling

(TRINIDAD GUARDIAN) The 21-year-old moth­er of a two-year-old girl who drowned in Ch­aguara­mas in Au­gust has been re­leased on $75,000 bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court charged with manslaugh­ter.

Riz­pah “Mir­a­cle” Ster­ling, of Quar­ry Road, San Juan, was grant­ed bail by Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle af­ter ap­pear­ing in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate’s Court over the un­law­ful death of her daugh­ter Isi­ahilla yes­ter­day.

Ster­ling was not called up­on to plead as the charge was laid in­dictably.

In her bail ap­pli­ca­tion, her at­tor­ney Hen­ry Chase not­ed the case was trag­ic and his client, who has an eight-month-old ba­by, was still re­ceiv­ing coun­selling.

“That child was her life. She was her eye-ball and her death was ac­ci­den­tal. She (Ster­ling) is most re­gret­ful and sor­row­ful over her child’s death,” Chase said as he claimed the hear­ing was his client’s first time be­fore a crim­i­nal court.

Al­though po­lice pros­e­cu­tor In­sp Wayne Mo­hammed could not con­firm whether Ster­ling’s record was, in fact, clean, he did not ob­ject to bail.

Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle al­lowed Ster­ling’s moth­er Eliz­a­beth to act as sure­ty for her bail.

Isi­ahilla drowned while she and rel­a­tives were swim­ming at Chagville Beach, Ch­aguara­mas, on Au­gust 12.

Ster­ling re­port­ed­ly took her eyes off her daugh­ter for a cou­ple of min­utes as she was tend­ing to her oth­er child. When she turned around she found her daugh­ter float­ing in the wa­ter near to her.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle asked Mo­hammed if po­lice were ready to dis­close the sum­ma­ry of ev­i­dence against Ster­ling to her de­fence at­tor­ney.

Mo­hammed said he did not re­ceive it as the of­fi­cer who charged Ster­ling was not present as he was un­aware his col­leagues had tak­en her to court. The dis­clo­sure is ex­pect­ed to take place when Ster­ling reap­pears in court on No­vem­ber 12.