18 year-old mother allegedly dumps baby in pit latrine
An eighteen year old Parika Facade resident is now in Police custody after the decomposed body of her 8 month daughter was retrieved from a pit latrine in the yard behind her house. The baby is suspected to have been killed sometime on Monday and then wrapped in a sheet, towel and then a hammock and placed in the latrine pit.
The woman who is originally from Lethem is named Sattie. The Police was called in after neighbors did not see the woman with the baby. When questioned as to the baby's wherabouts she gave conflicting reports. "Sattie said she gave away the baby in one instance and her sister from Lethem took the baby with her," in another instance the neighbour reported. A neighbor told Guyana Times that the baby normally cries alot. She was born without an anus and suffered from a number of ailments. The child used to excrete through a tube on the side of her stomach.
When asked, neighbours said the young mother never showed any signs of frustration and they were baffled as to why she would harm the child. At the time of the incident, the sister in law of the accused related that her brother was not the father of the child but he "took up," with the girl after they met while her daughter was in hospital. The sister-in-law related that her brother felt sorry for Sattie and took her in. However since going to the interior to work, neighbours have reported that Sattie is a regular at going out at nights and leaving the baby at home. This prompted them to check for the baby after they heard no sound from the house.
Neighbours believed she was lying after the two conflicting reports and called in the Police. A Post Mortem examination of the baby is to be performed on the remains to determine the cause of death and an according charge will be issued if the child was killed.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Police Force has since refuted claims in some sections of the media, which claimed that the teen mother has since confessed to killing her eight-month old child.
