By Michel Outridge

KEVIN Rankin, called ‘Lil Man’, appeared before Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry and a 12-member jury in the High Court on Friday, on trial for the October 21, 2013 murder of two-year-old Kimani Phillips.The child was his niece, and he was 15 years old at the time and was home from school, having been suspended for fighting.

According to State Prosecutor Narissa Leander, the accused was left at home at Lot 46 Haslington South, East Coast Demerara while his mother Diane Graham went on an errand. Her daughter’s children were left in her care, and the children were taken to the front house by relatives when Graham went out on October 21, 2013.

The prosecutor stated that the case is based on circumstantial evidence which, when pieced together, will paint a perfect picture of how Rankin inflicted on the two-year-old child injuries which caused her death.

Leander added that even though the incident took place three years ago, the State will call several witnesses to testify, and she asked members of the jury to consider only the evidence given in the courtroom.

The first witness called was Diane Graham, mother of the accused, who testified that, on the morning of October 21, 2013, she had left Rankin at home while she went to Money Gram to do a transaction which lasted about 20 minutes.
She related that she left her daughter’s two children, including two-year-old Kimani Phillips, with her nieces who reside in the front house in the same yard, which houses an extended family.

Graham said she was at her grandson’s school when she received a telephone call from one of her sisters, and she hurried home. On her way home, she saw Rankin exiting a car, and he said that Kimani “tek in” and they already took her to the health centre.

Graham said the child was taken to GPHC, where she was pronounced dead on arrival, and she subsequently went to the workplace of the child’s mother and informed her of what had happened.

They then returned to the GPHC, where her daughter, Denise Phillips, collapsed upon hearing of her child’s demise.

Meanwhile, under cross-examination by Defence Attorney Sandil Kissoon, Graham said the child seemed normal to her, and she could not say whether the child had been examined by any medical personnel at the health centre before she was taken to GPHC.

Graham explained under questioning that two days after the child had come to Guyana from Trinidad and Tobago, where she used to reside, she observed that the child had a constipation problem. Graham said she reported this matter to the child’s mother, but the child was not taken to see a doctor because the mother was unemployed then.

Three months after the incident, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) recommended that Rankin be charged for murder, and he was re-arrested and arraigned in the Magistrate’s Court.

It was reported that Kimani Phillips had been the victim of a brutal sexual assault (sodomy) after it was observed that her anus was enlarged and she had an old bite mark on her neck.

However, this was disputed among some family members.

A post-mortem examination, however, revealed that the two-year-old girl died from haemorrhage and shock due to multiple abdominal injuries.