Stepfather charged for killing 4-year-old

The stepfather of a four-year-old boy was hauled before the court on Thursday after he was charged for killing the child.
Joseph James appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts. The charge alleged that on October 7, 2019, at Silver Hill, Linden-Soesdyke Highway, James murdered Alex Price, his stepson, during the course of the rape.
The child was found unconscious, naked and with injuries to the head and eye on October 7 at approximately 12:00h.
Reports were that his 21-year-old stepfather claimed that he found the child with the injuries at their Silver Hill home on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway home.
The man had claimed that he left the child at home to go to a nearby shop to buy groceries. According to the prosecution’s case, the stepfather said that when he returned from the shop, he found the unconscious child.
An alarm was then raised, and nurses from the nearby Health Centre were summoned to the home. The child, however, succumbed on his way to the Linden Hospital Complex. An investigation was launched by Police. According to the Post-Mortem report, the child was sodomised and died from blunt trauma to the head.
Following an investigation, Police arrested the stepfather and the murder charge was instituted.