The Step-father of the 4-year-old boy, who was pronounced dead two Monday’s ago, after he was found unconscious, naked and with injuries to the head and eye, was on Thursday arraigned for the crime.
Twenty-one-year-old, Joseph James appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts and was required to plead to the indictable charge.
The charge alleged that on October 7, 2019, at Silver Hill, Soesdyke, Linden Highway, James murdered Alex Price, his stepson, during the course of the rape.
The lad, Alex Prince was pronounced dead after he was found unconscious, naked and with injuries to the head and eyes on Monday last about 12:00h by his stepfather at their home in Silver Hill on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway.
It was reported that the child was ‘discovered’ by his stepfather who claimed that he left the child at home to go to a nearby shop to buy groceries to cook. The man said that when he returned from the shop, he found the unconscious child.
An alarm was then raised, and nurses from the nearby Health Centre were summoned to the home. The child, however, succumbed on his way to the Linden Hospital Complex. An investigation was immediately launched into the matter.
An autopsy performed on the child proved that the child died as a result of blunt trauma to the head. It also revealed that he was sodomised.
