A male rel­a­tive of 23-month-old Khristha Knutt and her moth­er are in po­lice cus­tody af­ter the child was elec­tro­cut­ed in what po­lice be­lieve was a botched at­tempt to re­sus­ci­tate her.

Po­lice have al­so ar­rest­ed two teenagers who were in the house at the time the child was dy­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, the child was elec­tro­cut­ed af­ter the rel­a­tive used live wires to try to re­sus­ci­tate her, af­ter she was found un­re­spon­sive around 2.30 am yes­ter­day. He re­port­ed­ly cut the wires from a fan and at­tempt­ed to shock the child. When the child was not re­vived she was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where she was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

How­ev­er, hos­pi­tal sources said the child's body was al­ready cold when she was brought in for treat­ment. The T&T Guardian was in­formed that were it not for the sus­pi­cion of the Ca­su­al­i­ty De­part­ment's House Of­fi­cer, Dr Janet Charles, the ba­by's death would not have been ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Sources said Charles no­ticed what ap­peared to be scratch­es near the child's nip­ples and over­heard a mor­tu­ary at­ten­dant say­ing that some­one had tried to re­sus­ci­tate her at home. Charles ex­am­ined the body clos­er and saw what ap­peared to be rec­tan­gu­lar shaped im­pres­sions on the child's chest. As a re­sult, hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties called in the po­lice and a foren­sic ex­am­i­na­tion was or­dered.

A fe­male rel­a­tive who spoke with the T&T Guardian at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, said the child had the cold and could not breathe prop­er­ly. She added that lit­tle Khristha, who lived with her moth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives at Rock City, Laven­tille, stopped breath­ing at some stage and rel­a­tives con­tact­ed the Emer­gency Health Ser­vices.

The rel­a­tive said they de­cid­ed to try the live wires in a bid to re­vive her and for a pe­ri­od it seemed to be work­ing as the child was mo­men­tar­i­ly re­spond­ing. How­ev­er, the child again fell un­con­scious.

Speak­ing with the me­dia, how­ev­er, the child's grand­moth­er, Mar­lene Rawl­ins, gave a dif­fer­ent ver­sion. Al­though ad­mit­ting she was not at the house when the child died, Rawl­ins said for some­time she had a "gut feel­ing" that some­thing was wrong with the home en­vi­ron­ment of the child, as lit­tle Khristha would al­ways run away from the male rel­a­tive.

"That man is not the fa­ther. He's been stay­ing there for some­time but to me the ba­by al­ways cry­ing and run­ning away from him.

"If the ba­by afraid (of) you and run­ning from you, then you must see what go­ing on. I wasn't there so I don't know what was go­ing on. The re­port said it's like some­one hit her like about three times but I don't know be­cause I wasn't there, that is what the doc­tor said. It come like some­one mur­der her," Rawl­ins said.

Ac­cord­ing to the au­top­sy re­port, done by foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Hughvon Des Vi­gnes, the child died as a re­sult of blunt cranio cere­bral trau­ma and elec­tro­cu­tion. Ev­i­dence of in­juries to three sep­a­rate places to the child's head was found. The child's brain was al­so swollen and there was al­so ev­i­dence of her chok­ing on food.

"They kill my grand­child you know. Why you elec­tro­cute my child? That's my grand­daugh­ter. I al­ways tell my daugh­ter I don't want this man in my house be­cause I was al­ways afraid he would abuse her. I got the vibes. She would get vex when I tell her that but this was what I was telling her," Rawl­ins said.

She added: "She with that man on­ly four months now. She bare­ly knows that man but I was pray­ing last night for my grand­daugh­ter and my daugh­ter came and told me what hap­pen. I told them I just hope none of them killed my grand­child.

"I just talked plain. I will nev­er feel good about that. Es­pe­cial­ly in my house. You see how life is. It's very sad."

Rawl­ins said she used to warn the child's step­fa­ther about his in­ter­ac­tions with her grand­child, telling him that what­ev­er he was do­ing to make the child be afraid of him was "not good in the eye­sight of the Lord.

"I just sor­ry for my grand­daugh­ter to see she had to go through this," Rawl­ins said.

adding that now she wants jus­tice for her grand­child, whom she said was promised to God to be raised by her in ac­cor­dance with his teach­ings.

On her Face­book page yes­ter­day, the moth­er of the child post­ed pic­tures of her dead ba­by and threat­ened to com­mit sui­cide. She was ad­vised against this by her Face­book friends, who all ex­pressed shock at the child's death and gave words of en­cour­age­ment to the moth­er.

Homi­cide of­fi­cers are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Bi­o­log­i­cal dad wants an­swers

Ernest Knutt, 45, bi­o­log­i­cal fa­ther of tod­dler Khristha Knutt, is call­ing for jus­tice as he be­lieves that there was more to his child's death.

Knutt, who live at Five Rivers, Arou­ca, ap­peared on CNC3's Crime Watch show last evening. He told host Ian Al­leyne he was con­tact­ed at about 3 am by hos­pi­tal of­fi­cials and lat­er told his daugh­ter died af­ter a rel­a­tive used 110 volt­age live wires to try to re­sus­ci­tate her af­ter she was found un­re­spon­sive.

"This is all too strange be­cause the moth­er, I be­lieve, was not telling me every­thing. I felt there was some­thing more to it when the grand­moth­er said that some­one has to pay for this. I re­al­ly want to know what went on with my child," he said.

Knutt said when Khristha was six months old he sep­a­rat­ed from her moth­er but al­ways kept a close re­la­tion­ship with his child.

He said he was im­pris­oned for sev­en years and was re­leased in 2010 and since the birth of his sixth child, Khristha, he had turned his life to­tal­ly around from the life of crime.

"My daugh­ter make me change. I left all things be­hind be­cause of her and now for her to go like this ... I need an­swers," Knutt said.