Twenty-six-year-old Pat Brenda Ferriera of Foulis, East Coast Demerara (ECD), who murdered her three-year-old son, was on Wednesday arraigned at the Cove and John Magistrate’s Court and remanded to prison.
Dressed in a skirt and blouse with slippers on her feet, the pregnant woman appeared before Magistrate Peter Hugh, who ordered that she be psychologically evaluated.
Ferriera appeared in court as the three-year-old boy was being laid to rest by his father and grandmother. She was remanded to prison until September 12.
Reports are the woman stabbed her son, Ramdeo Ferreira in his heart after she
Pat Brenda Ferriera
had a dream that she would have died on August 25.
She told Police that if the dream was true and she was to die, she did not want her favourite child to be left behind.
The Police stated that on Saturday last, the woman began pursuing the hapless lad in the yard with a knife in her hand.
A few minutes later, ranks at the Enmore Police Outpost received a report that the child had been stabbed by his mother; and upon arriving at the scene, they found the child lying unconscious in a pool of blood with suspected stab wounds to his neck and back.
He was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries about three hours later.
Based on reports received, the woman would usually neglect the children when their father was at work and this, neighbours stated, would lead to constant arguments between the couple. The aggrieved father told media operatives that his reputed wife started to act in an abnormal manner days prior to the incident.
He recalled lodging a report at the Enmore Police Station about her behaviour, but the ranks never visited the home until Saturday after the child was stabbed.
After the incident, neighbours blamed themselves for not intervening in the situation at an earlier stage. It was reported that the woman was reported to the Child Care and Protection Agency for child neglect, but the officers visited once when no one was at home and never returned.
This claim was refuted by Director of the Agency, Ann Greene, who told Guyana Times that officers of the Agency revisited the home three times since the initial report but was allegedly told that the woman had moved out.
