A 22-year-old man who is suspected of slitting the throat of a 1-year-old baby girl in Rose Hall Saturday night resulting in the infant’s death is in police custody.
iWitness News was reliably informed that the man, identified as a close relative of the child, was arrested Saturday night, sometime after officers from the Rapid Response Unit of the police force were dispatched to the North Leeward village to search for him.
Police are yet to issue a statement on the case, the second infanticide in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in less than a year.
Initial reports were that the suspect reportedly said that the baby and the her father were demon-possessed and must be killed to cleanse the village.
The suspect is said to have climbed through a window when the child’s mother was in the shower and slit her throat.
The baby was rushed to a health facility, where she was pronounced dead.
Meanwhile, in May 2023, the body of a 6-month-old baby boy was found on the ground floor pavement outside an apartment where his family lived on the first floor of the three-storey building.
The child is believed to have been flung to his death by an adult relative of the house who has a history of mental illness.
Initial reports were that the mother left the child in his room and went to prepare a meal for him.
While in the kitchen, she heard the child scream and when she returned, she did not meet him where she had left him a few minutes earlier.
The other female was also not in her room.
Police investigated the death as a homicide but no charges were laid in the case.
Update: This article was updated to correct the sex of the baby and to include the age of the suspect.
It will be good if the government can train 15 well educated individuals to become psychiatrists, or obtain them from abroad if possible. This will allow for each constituency to have a psychiatrist to attend to those who are mentally ill. Villagers in Rose Hall have become more fearful since the killing of this baby. In every section of Rose Hall, there is at least one individual who is mentally ill. The situation is so pitiful there.