Mother denies poisoning 2 children

…jury hears about ‘poison’ tablets

Twenty-five-year-old Awena Rutherford appeared before Justice Navindra Singh and a 12-member jury at the High Court on Monday to answer charges that she killed her two children by poison on March 27, 2014 at Branch Road, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
Represented by Attorney Adrian Thompson, the accused woman denied two counts of manslaughter as presented by State Prosecutor Tiffini Lyken, who in her

opening address told the jury that one-year-old

Jabari Cadogan and four-year-old Odasia Cadogan died from pesticide poisoning. The cause of death was uncovered during the post-mortem examination.
The defendant’s sister, Monica Sealey, testified that her niece and nephew vomited after Rutherford gave them tablets to drink, claiming that they had a cold, but according to Sealey, the children did not have a cold. Sealey recalled that the four-year-old hesitated to drink the tablet.
Sealey told the court that her sister and two children lived with her family, which included her husband, Curt Sealey and the two children she had at the time. The jury heard that on the fateful day, Rutherford, after taking a bath, called Jabari and Odasia to drink the tablets. The children’s aunt recalled that the one-year-old drank his first and was playing and her sister told her niece: ‘“Why is it you can’t drink something when I give you and your brother done drink his already?’” At one point, Sealey broke down when recounting what she witnessed. Under cross-examination, she could not say whether or not her niece was coughing before she was given the tablet. Reports in 2014 were that the father of the Cadogan children had threatened to take them away from Rutherford the day before their demise. The matter continues before Justice Singh. Some 10 witnesses are set to testify.