Camille Clarke

In­stead of prepar­ing for a chris­ten­ing weeks away, a Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, moth­er of four will now be prepar­ing to bury her three-month-old ba­by girl.How­ev­er, mys­tery sur­rounds the death of ba­by Akela Gibbs, bet­ter known as "Curly Bear" by her fam­i­ly, who was found dead in the bed of a rel­a­tive at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve yes­ter­day.Up to late yes­ter­day, a 34-year-old man re­mained in the cus­tody of Homi­cide Bu­reau of­fi­cers as­sist­ing in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 4.10 am yes­ter­day, PCs Mack­oon­s­ingh, War­wick and of­fi­cers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch re­spond­ed to a call that a moth­er had found her child life­less in a bed at a rel­a­tive's home.When the of­fi­cers ar­rived they found the child froth­ing from the mouth and im­me­di­ate­ly no­ti­fied EHS, who al­so re­spond­ed.

Po­lice said the moth­er, Nicole Man­swell, told them she went to a par­ty with a rel­a­tive. When she re­turned home she said the rel­a­tive had propo­si­tioned her for sex and she replied neg­a­tive­ly. Man­swell told po­lice the rel­a­tive then took their two chil­dren and went to his house. It is al­leged that when she went for the chil­dren an hour lat­er she no­ticed the rel­a­tive's hand over the ba­by's mouth, po­lice said.

Poor parental skills

In an in­ter­view at an­oth­er rel­a­tive's house yes­ter­day in Sea Lots, fam­i­ly mem­bers crit­i­cised the rel­a­tive's parental qual­i­ties."The ba­by was good last night. She was play­ing and laugh­ing," she said."The moth­er went and play wapee when he take the chil­dren be­cause she need mon­ey to mind the child."I told her go and check on the child and lat­er some­body come and tell me the child dead. When I went the child had froth com­ing from her nose and mouth."

The rel­a­tive ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that it was pos­si­ble the rel­a­tive fell asleep be­cause he was ine­bri­at­ed and his arm may have cov­ered the child "and he did not know what he was do­ing."She said Akela was go­ing to be chris­tened on May 4.

Con­flict­ing sto­ries

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said yes­ter­day it was pos­si­ble the sus­pect could have rolled on the ba­by while she was asleep.How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said there were "con­trary" state­ments made con­cern­ing the child's death.A post-mortem will be con­duct­ed on ba­by Akela at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, Fed­er­a­tion Park, St James, on Mon­day.This lat­est in­ci­dent comes five days af­ter Bar­ry Kara­math, 34, poi­soned his two-year old daugh­ter Ke'an­na May­ers and 10-month old son Omari May­ers and killed him­self at Mo­ra Trace.