– woman accused of poisoning children to know fate today

HOFOSAWA Awena Rutherford who is on trial in the Demerara High Court before Justice Navindra Singh and a 12-member jury for the March 27, 2014 alleged ‘rat poisoning’ of her two children at Branch Road, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara will know her fate today.

Justice Singh will sum up the evidence at 09:00hrs after which the jury will retire to deliberate and arrive at a verdict based on the evidence presented in the courtroom which saw about 10 witnesses testifying.

On Wednesday when the trial continued, the accused, leading her defence, opted to give an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s box. Rutherford told the court that she did not poison her children and she is tramautised by the memory of losing them.

“I didn’t buy rat poison to kill my children; it was cold tablets I gave them.”
Rutherford in a very teary-eyed address to the court on Wednesday said she was not treated fairly by the police because they accused her of poisoning her children.

Those who took the stand on Wednesday included Government Pathologist, Dr. Nehaul Singh, who gave the cause of death as pesticide poisoning by carbon tablets (rat poison) also called aluminium sulphate. Rutherford has since pleaded not guilty to the charge of two counts of manslaughter and is being represented by defence counsel, Adrian Thompson.
Meanwhile, the state’s case is being led by prosecutor, Tiffini Lyken in association with Shawnette Austin and Abigail Gibbs.

Lyken, in her opening statement following the empanelment on Monday, told the court that one-year-old Jabari Cadogan and four-year-old Odasia Cadogan died from pesticide poisoning. She added that the cause of death was revealed during an autopsy.