Latest update September 25th, 2026 10:10 AM
Guyanese man arrested for battering two-year-old to death in T&T
T&T—Two-year-old Etean George Smith was battered to death some time during Wednesday night and Thursday morning at his home in Aranjuez. His tiny bruised body was found on a bed by two relatives.
A 21-year-old Guyanese man was questioned by homicide detectives about Etean’s murder. The man was also questioned about reports that he severely beat Etean’s 22-year-old mother Devika Rani Rooplal.
Rooplal, who is also Guyanese, was interviewed by police. So too was Etean’s biological father, Eddie Smith. Smith is also from Guyana. On Wednesday, about 5 pm, Rooplal was attacked by the suspect, a close relative, who repeatedly beat her for several hours at the downstairs apartment of a house where they lived at Freddy Street, Aranjuez.
Bruised and bleeding, Rooplal managed to sneak out when the suspect was not looking and ran a few streets away to another relative’s home at Johnny King Road where she sought refuge. She did not have time, or the strength to take her son with her.
Her relatives took her to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mount Hope for treatment. Rooplal did not return to the apartment at Freddy Street.
Two family members went to the apartment instead and they found Etean dead at about 7 am.
Relatives immediately carried Rooplal to the apartment and called in the police. When ASP Sacenarine Mahabir and officers from the Barataria Police Station arrived they found the suspect in the apartment and detained him. He was taken to the station under heavy police guard.
Minutes after undertakers arrived, scores of villagers and media personnel gathered around the front gate of the house as Etean’s small body was carried out in a maroon bag by an undertaker.
A deafening silence fell over shocked onlookers.
Even members of the media were stunned. “Oh my God. Look at that tiny body. What has this place come to? I am sorry I saw this; this will be engraved in my memory forever,” said one reporter. A television cameraman cried, “Oh gosh! No, no.” The elder Smith, who was said to be in his 20s, was taken into the apartment by investigators to view his son’s body. When he came out, hours after, Smith stood by himself and stared at the hearse and then inside a police vehicle, where officers had placed Rooplal, shortly after undertakers removed the toddler’s body.
When approached by Newsday, Smith muttered “Thanks for the condolences” then bent his head and walked away.
Upset villagers, close friends and relatives claimed Rooplal and her son were constantly beaten by the suspect “on a daily basis”.
Janet Nandkumar said Rooplal and the suspect “always fought and quarrelled with each other” when they previously rented from her.
“Very often we would tell Devika (Rooplal) to get out but she never listened to us. Even the baby, as he got older, was also abused. Sometimes she used her body as a shield in an attempt to protect him and save him from the blows this man used to give him. Many times she was badly beaten but she did nothing about it,” Nandkumar said.
Nandkumar and other relatives said Smith tried several times to convince Rooplal to let Etean live with him but she refused to give up the boy.
“Eddie (Smith) came so regularly to take the child but not for hell Devika (Rooplal) would give him. He heard about the abuse and told her that if she want to stay to get licks she could but he could not stand to know that his son getting beat up and leave him there, but still Devika never gave him up and look what happen now. It would have been better if she gave Etean back to his father. He would have still been alive today,” Nandkumar said crying.
Nizam Razack, a relative, told Newsday that up to last Sunday Etean was badly beaten. “I fed-up hear that child being beaten and seeing the bruises on his body. Up to Sunday, he was beaten and nothing was done to protect him.”
Investigators said the suspect was an out-of-work mason and Rooplal was the sole breadwinner, working at a saltfish factory.
Investigations are continuing. (Trinidad Newsday)
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