The National Newspaper of St. Vincent and the Grenadines
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 17, 2012
VOLUME 106, No. 33
www.thevincentian.com
INFANT MURDERED SOME RESIDENTS OF THE VILLAGE called Robinson Hill, which overlooks the E T Joshua Airport at Arnos Vale, said they were traumatized Wednesday afternoon after Machika Peters, an eighteen-yearold mother residing there, allegedly strangled her one-year-old male child. Residents, trying to come to grips with the killing of Makealti Peters, said they had never had such heinous crime in the village before, even though they may have had quarrels from time to time. One resident, Sheridan Davis, said she was not at home at the time of the incident but she was saddened by what happened. “Ah feel bad. If we coulda get the girl to beat she I woulda beat she,” Davis said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. It is alleged that the teenaged mother was in Kingstown earlier Wednesday and was quarrelling about maintenance money for the child. She then went home and around 2.00 p.m. she went and took the child from her neighbour’s place where he and others were playing, and carried him
EC$1.50
Makealti Peters (pictured here sleeping), the oneyear-old who was allegedly murdered by his mother. Sheridan Davis (left) and Cortina Benn who held the dead infant in her arms. Davis’s daughter is also pictured.
The wooden house at Robinson Hill, in which Machika Peters, her son Makealti and her siblings lived. home. “Oh Gawd, de pickney lip turn white like he nah been ha no blood,” said a neighbour, Cortina Benn in an interview. “I was inside and I heard my next door neighbour, (Machika) siblings saying ‘Good afternoon. Good afternoon.’ I did not go outside. Then I hear one of them say his sister took up a pillow and chase he and his other siblings out of the house,” Benn stated.
Benn said she heard a commotion and then went outside and rushed to the scene. She said that a pillow was covering the infant’s face. “When the police dem come I had the baby in my hands holding. The child fired stool (defecated). Stool was in his pampers. Like when he suffocating he fired stool,” Benn said. Residents said that shortly after the alarm was raised, Peters was seen running towards
the main road, the Vigie Highway, where she got into a vehicle which, reportedly, took her to the Calliaqua Police Station. Calliaqua Police confirmed Wednesday afternoon that a suspect was in custody. They said a post mortem was expected to be conducted on the infant yesterday. Information received said that Peters was to celebrate her nineteenth birthday yesterday.