Convicted killer mom sentencing postponed

…court requests probation report

Justice Navindra Singh postponed the sentencing of Hofosawa Awena Rutherford, who was found guilty of killing her children by feeding them rat poison, until April 9, after she requested that a probation report be sent to the court before she is sentenced.
On Thursday, a jury unanimously found Rutherford guilty of killing her children; one-year-old Jabari Cadogan and four-year-old Odascia Cadogan almost four years ago. Following the verdict, the woman collapsed in the courtroom forcing Justice Singh to adjourn the sentencing until 13:00h on Friday.
However, when she appeared in court on Friday, Rutherford pleaded with the court for mercy and to take the time served into consideration when imposing her sentence. Her attorney, Adrian Thompson, told the court that his client has been seeing a psychiatrist and all of that should be taken into consideration.
Justice Singh then noted that it is Rutherford’s right to have a probation report and ordered same to be prepared and sent to the court. He adjourned the sentencing until April 9 at 13:00h.
Initially, Rutherford said she had bought cold tablets for the children who has cold-like symptoms, from a man at the Plaisance bus park who sells rat poison. It was established that the children died from pesticide poisoning via a highly toxic chemical called aluminum phosphide, known as “carbon tablets”, which is used to kill rats.
During the trial, several witnesses had testified that the children never had cold-like symptoms on the day of their demise. Police witnesses had stated that when interviewed moments after the children’s deaths, Rutherford had repeatedly complained of stress and problems.
Rutherford had said she had drunk two tablets herself, after administering similar tablets to her children, Odasica and Jabari; and had been hospitalised for seven days after the poisoning incident.
In an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock on Wednesday, the convicted woman, in a bout of tears and excessive shaking, had claimed that she loved her children; that she was still traumatised from losing them; that she had never bought rat poison to poison her children, and that the Police had treated her unfairly.
At court on Thursday, several persons questioned whether she had really loved her children, since she had given them rat poison to ingest.
State Prosecutor Tiffini Lyken had opined that Rutherford had strayed from her recollection of events when she said she had bought the tablets from a pharmacy in her statement on Wednesday.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the father of the two deceased children, Jabari Cadogan Sr, had testified via Skype from Brooklyn, New York, USA that he supported his children even after he had separated from Rutherford, and that he used to communicate with them daily. The senior Cadogan told the court he was never told the children were suffering from a cold.
Rutherford and the children were staying with her sister, Monica Sealey, and her husband Curt, who both testified before the jury that they had not noticed any cold symptoms on the fateful day of the children’s demise.
In this trial, Prosecutors Shawnette Austin and Abigail Gibbs appeared for the State.