By CECILY ASSON Monday, February 11 2013

NOT KNOWING that her baby was dead, Josanne Charles, 30, wept and begged doctors to take her to see five-month-old daughter Samayah, who died when the car in which they were travelling in, was involved in a head-on collision along the SS Erin Road, Palo Seco on Saturday morning.

Charles’ mother Merlin, told Newsday yesterday, “She wasn’t allowed to see the baby and broke down in tears when she was told that Samayah had died. The counsellors had to come and work with her.”

Charles of Palo Seco, did not know that her Samayah, who is the last of her three children, had died in the vehicular accident when she asked doctors to see the baby. Merlin said the doctors first had to stabilised Charles before breaking the tragic news to her yesterday.

Up to yesterday, Charles, who suffered two broken arms and other minor injuries along with Kizzy Grant and Trevour Murrain, remained warded in stable condition at the San Fernando General Hospital. Eyewitnesses told Newsday that rescuers did not know that a baby was a passenger in the vehicle, because the front of the car was submerged in a drain.

One man said, “The front of the car was in the drain which was filled with water and we thought we had taken out everyone, only to go back to find the bay on the floor.”

Police suspect that the baby may have drowned. John Lee Aping, who was driving the Toyota Corolla, also died instantly when he swerved to avoid a pothole and crashed head-on into the car driven by Murrain.

Meanwhile, police reported yesterday that Akeem Hamlet, 23, whose body was found bound and gagged with chop wounds in a recreation ground in Penal on Saturday, was wanted in connection with a series of shootings and armed robberies in the south western district.

Hamlet lived at Delhi Road, Fyzabad and police said he was on bail for charges of attempted murder which is pending in the Siparia Magistrates’ Court.

And a Guyanese national remains in custody in connection with the death of Stella Rampersad, 30, of Moolchan Trace, Penal. The mother of three was found lying motionless on the floor of her home and was rushed to the Siparia Health Facility where she later died.

Autopsies are expected to be performed on the bodies of baby Samayah, Aping, Hamlet and Rampersad on Wednesday at the Forensic Science Centre, Port-of- Spain. Investigations are continuing into the three incidents.