The continued investigation of a Haitian politician detained by police in St Elizabeth could have led to a sergeant of police forgetting that his 18-month-old child had been left in his car parked at Black River Police Station for several hours in January.

The detective had taken his wife, also a sergeant, to work at Pedro Plains Police Station on the morning of Monday, January 17. The next thing for him to do was leave the toddler at a daycare centre, as the child’s grandmother, who usually looks after her when the parents were unavailable, was having symptoms of the flu, and it was felt that it would be unwise to have her keep the infant that day.

Unaccustomed to the chore of placing the child in daycare at a location in Black River where the detective sergeant works, he was said to have mistakenly left the little girl in the rear of the car, and drove off in a police service vehicle to Warminster, south-east St Elizabeth, about a 45-minute trip by road, to carry out a further probe into the case of the former Haitian official who was held on January 15, along with his wife, and two children. They were taken into custody while they stayed in two houses close to each other.

Initial reports are that the detective sergeant remembered that he had left the child in the vehicle hours later and immediately alerted his colleagues at Black River station, who found the child unconscious, and took her to the nearby Black River Hospital.

Two days before, on January 15 in a pre-dawn operation, the police captured former Haitian Opposition Senator John Joel Joseph, who is one of three key suspects who was being hunted in relation to the July 2021 assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moise. He had a US$61,000 bounty placed on his head.

His wife, an attorney-at-law, was held in the same house, while their two sons were also taken into custody.

Following reports that Joseph paid much money to get to Jamaica, he was said to have also offered a bribe of $2 million to law enforcers, with whom he pleaded to release him, as he feared being killed if authorities returned him to Haiti.

Moise was killed on July 7 last year, when a hit team stormed his house above the capital Port-au-Prince. His wife Martine, though wounded, survived the attack.

“Among the things that the detective sergeant had gone back to the community for, as part of the investigation, was to find out if there could have been other Haitians hiding in the area, because reports had surfaced that some other people from Haiti were all over the place, including a place near Hounslow way over the other side that was rented to them by a justice of the peace,” a senior police source informed the Sunday Observer.

“As soon as the JP found out that there was a search on for Haitians, he gave them notice, and they just disappeared, although one or two of them were spotted in the area from time to time,” the lawman said.

The detective sergeant was said to be part of the police team that was also probing a possible link with human trafficking, specifically at seaside areas like Parottee Bay, near Black River; Great Bay and Treasure Beach, all in St Elizabeth South Western.

He was said to have been “thrown upside down” when he remembered that the child had been left in his car, and became frantic.

“Naturally, he would have been disturbed when he found out,” the senior officer continued to relate to the Sunday Observer. “He called the station and told an officer there to go and check the vehicle, for he had left the keys at the station, and when his colleagues went to check, the child was motionless, and appeared to be sleeping. She was taken, almost immediately to the health facility.

“What is interesting was that one of the detective’s colleagues had said that he had leaned against the car during the day, and was holding a conversation with someone, but did not look inside the vehicle, neither did he hear any sound coming from it,” the senior cop continued. “People say things all the while about police this and police that, but if they only knew what the average policeman has to go through on a daily basis, they would be amazed. Here is a man who was so caught up in his work, so committed to his job, so focused, that he put personal business aside to look after the affairs of the country. He should be afforded sympathy, and should be commended, rather than being called careless.”

The child was also taken to Savanna-la-Mar Hospital to do a CT scan, but she died on Wednesday, January 19.

An autopsy was performed on the body in Kingston on Friday, but the findings were not available. Two family members were present to identify the body.

When the Sunday Observer visited sections of St Elizabeth last week for follow-up and to acquire fresh information on the incident, some of those contacted either declined to speak on the matter, or said very little.

One man, who said he was a relative of one parent, said that since the incident, the couple had not returned to their home at Munro, in the parish’s south-east.

“Me a tell you boss, it sad fi everybody up a Munro, because dem nuh go back a di house. People go a di house fi lend them support, but is like it always lock up. Me hear say the mother and father a stay a Mountainside,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Checks by the newspaper suggested that the distraught couple had been staying with relatives elsewhere, and were said to be in deep depression.

Further south, along the journey, the Sunday Observer was told that daily weeping by both parents was a common occurrence, and even though they were being consoled by some close to them, the emotional pain seemed to be getting deeper.

“Me sorry fi di parents dem so till,” a mother of seven uttered to the Sunday Observer. “Me have my pickney dem, although most a dem grow up an tun big people, an me no have none wey so young, but is not a nice feeling. We wouldn’t like to be inna dat position whey the man an him wife find themself.

“Trust me, sometimes the mother jus go sit ina the hot sun an start bawl, jus a bawl so. It hard fi dem man,” she continued.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is expected to determine whether or not criminal charges will be laid against the father.