The fa­ther of Ama­rah Lal­lite, the four-year-old who was be­head­ed on Mon­day night, says he tried his best to gain cus­tody of his child and had he been suc­cess­ful, she would be alive to­day.

Shan­non Lal­lite told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that while he spent the last three years out of the child’s life, it was not for a lack of try­ing. He said af­ter po­lice told him he could not file for cus­tody, he aban­doned that and had tried to con­tact her moth­er un­suc­cess­ful­ly since.

“Ah try! Ah try! Ah try! Be­cause when I tried to drop $1,500 and my moth­er come back from New York with a whole big bag of clothes for my daugh­ter, is be­cause she now come out­side and say ‘I doh want noth­ing from all yuh’ and she say she was go­ing to call the po­lice,” Lal­lite re­called.

Lal­lite said sev­er­al at­tempts to get in con­tact with the child’s moth­er, Tri­cia Vil­laru­el, were un­suc­cess­ful.

Guardian Me­dia was told Vil­laru­el lived at the Fifth Street, Five Rivers, Arou­ca home for the bet­ter part of three years.

“Three years now I try­ing to see my daugh­ter. Three years!” Lal­lite said, adding he could not have done any more for his child be­cause he had no con­tact with her moth­er and in­ter­me­di­aries were not help­ful.

He said he found out about the killing from his broth­er, who came bang­ing at his door. The news forced him to find the last known ad­dress he had for his child.

Po­lice said at about 10.10 pm on Mon­day, the child’s moth­er vis­it­ed the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion with her clothes tat­tered seek­ing help. Of­fi­cers who took her in­for­ma­tion es­cort­ed her to her home where the body of the child was found in one of the bed­rooms. Her head was found in a bar­rel at the back of the house.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene around 1 am yes­ter­day, Snr Supt Richard Smith said his of­fi­cers, on see­ing the grue­some dis­cov­ery, broke down and cried, with some now need­ing coun­selling.

Coun­selling was al­so of­fered to one neigh­bour, Es­hana Mo­hammed, who was seen cry­ing at the scene.

Guardian Me­dia al­so over­heard one of­fi­cer say they have a child as young as Ama­rah and might need coun­selling af­ter pro­cess­ing the scene. An­oth­er of­fi­cer de­scribed the scene as “sa­tan­ic”.

Hours lat­er, while some neigh­bours did not want to speak on the killing, oth­ers said they were shocked, as the sus­pect, a 39-year-old man who was ar­rest­ed at the home, was al­ways qui­et, a bit odd, but nev­er vi­o­lent.

MP for the area, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, said he was dis­gust­ed by the killing.

“While the end of any hu­man life is cause for sor­row, the tak­ing of a child’s life is a re­flec­tion of the state of the so­ci­ety to which they be­longed and the de­prav­i­ty of the in­di­vid­ual who car­ried out the act.”

He added that with strong com­mu­ni­ty bonds, such in­ci­dents will not re­oc­cur. He pledged his sup­port in as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty to heal.

As Ama­rah’s fa­ther sought an­swers and looked for some­one to blame, he said he want­ed to find the sus­pect and do to him what was done to his child. Lal­lite said he found the sys­tems failed to help him get his child, which con­tributed to her death.

“I find the po­lice could have had some more un­der­stand­ing be­cause I had peo­ple who tell me ‘boy that is your daugh­ter, no­body can’t tell you any­thing’. Death was the fur­thest thing from my mind, I was not ex­pect­ing death.”

Mo­hammed sought to com­fort him and en­cour­aged both par­ents to come to­geth­er now to give their “lit­tle an­gel” a prop­er bur­ial.

“I know that you are hurt­ing. I know you have re­grets but noth­ing you do right now could bring her back. I em­pathise with you but right now be­ing ig­no­rant and ar­ro­gant is not go­ing to solve any­thing. I know you’re hurt­ing, and you have a right to hurt but both of you act­ed like chil­dren. All yuh could have com­mu­ni­cat­ed bet­ter and fight for that child,” she told Lal­lite.

The par­ents were re­mind­ed that now is not the time for di­vi­sion but for the fam­i­lies to hurt to­geth­er in or­der to heal to­geth­er.

Ama­rah’s killing was rem­i­nis­cent of the mur­der of Keyana Cum­ber­batch, whose de­com­pos­ing body was found stuffed in a bar­rel at her Mal­oney Gar­dens home in 2013.

Her step­fa­ther Dwayne Lewis was lat­er charged with her killing. The mat­ter is still be­fore the courts.