Mahaicony poisoning tragedy…Spouse had threatened to take children from mother

Mar 29, 2014 News

– had made previous attempts at suicide

The young mother who poisoned her two children last Thursday may have been depressed because her overseas-based spouse had threatened to take the children from her.
Close relatives of 21-year-old Awena Rutherford said that her reputed husband had told one of his relatives that he “wanted his children and was coming tomorrow” (today) for them.

Awena Rutherford

Kaieteur News understands that the children’s father is due in Guyana today.
On Thursday, Rutherford fed her two children half a pellet each of a ‘carbon tablet’, at Perth, Mahaicony, after telling a relative that she “had a surprise” for them.
Jabari Cadogan, 16 months, died at the Mahaicony Cottage Hospital, while his sister, four-year-old Odessa Cadogan, succumbed at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), despite the best efforts of staffers to save her.
Rutherford herself reportedly ingested two of the pellets and is in a critical condition in the GPHC’s Female Medical Ward.
Kaieteur News was told that the couple was having problems for some time and Rutherford’s spouse had previously threatened to take her daughter. At that time, the couple only had one child. Some of the problems reportedly stemmed from allegations of infidelity.
A close relative also disclosed that Rutherford had also attempted to kill herself in similar fashion last December.
Relatives reportedly found her lying on her bed with pellets of the deadly rodenticide known as ‘carbon tablets’ on the floor.
Fortunately, the children were not at the residence. On hindsight, a relative said that she believed that the young mother was in urgent need of counseling, “but we never knew that she was so distressed”.
The relative painted a picture of a troubled and also “own way” young woman from an unstable home.
She dropped out of school without writing her Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations after becoming pregnant. She also lost her mother to a terminal illness a few years ago.
This newspaper understands that Rutherford and her reputed husband had resided for several years at ‘B’ Field, Sophia. However, she later moved to her mother’s home in Perth, Mahaicony.
Rutherford’s reputed husband, who lives overseas, had reportedly called his mother earlier in the day and had asked her to keep the children at her Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara residence.
Sometime in the afternoon, Rutherford reportedly went to collect the children. The aunt handed the children to their mother, unaware that the mother had purchased pellets of ‘carbon tablets’ earlier in the day.
Rutherford then took the children to her Perth, Mahaicony home, after telling the aunt she “had a surprise for them”.
On arriving at Mahaicony, she allegedly fed the children the ‘carbon tablets’ and also ingested the same poison.
Someone later informed the aunt that Rutherford had poisoned the children and that they were at Mahaicony Cottage Hospital. By the time relatives arrived, little Jabari Cadogan was already dead, while his sister succumbed at the GPHC.