Police probe death of three-year-old boy

SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the death of a three-year-old boy at his San Fer­nan­do home.

Omari Richins, of Corinth Hills, San Fer­nan­do, was a stu­dent of a pri­vate pre-school.

Po­lice were con­tact­ed af­ter the child was tak­en un­re­spon­sive to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by his par­ents around 5:25 am on Mon­day. He was pro­nounced dead at about 5:48 am.

Po­lice said there were no marks of vi­o­lence on the child’s body.

Ac­cord­ing to the child’s moth­er, at about 8:30 pm on Sun­day, she fed her son pineap­ple and pep­per­oni piz­za pur­chased from a piz­za restau­rant. Short­ly af­ter­wards, he com­plained of head and stom­ach pains. He was still in dis­com­fort around 2:30 am.

She said she lat­er fell asleep and awoke some­time af­ter 4 am to find her son un­re­spon­sive and soaked in vom­it. She alert­ed the child’s 58-year-old fa­ther, who ad­min­is­tered CPR. Para­medics con­tin­ued CPR while trans­port­ing the child to hos­pi­tal.

An au­top­sy per­formed at the San Fer­nan­do Mor­tu­ary de­ter­mined that the cause of death was cere­bral oede­ma, as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis, and low­er res­pi­ra­to­ry tract in­fec­tion.

While tox­i­col­o­gy re­sults are still pend­ing, po­lice said it is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that the child could have in­gest­ed drain wa­ter, pos­si­bly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with in­sec­ti­cide or her­bi­cide.

Ste Madeleine po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.