Wrapped in his mother's arms, a three-week-old baby boy was smothered to death as they slept yesterday morning.
A distraught Rachel Procope, who suffers from epilepsy, said she took little Isiah Abrahim out of his crib around 2.30 a.m. to breast-feed. "I hold him in my arms on the bed and was breast-feeding him, but I had taken tablets before and I started feeling drowsy. I probably fell asleep with him in my arms," she said.
Procope, 23, said when she awoke around 7.30 a.m., her baby was bleeding through the nose and mouth. "There was blood all over my clothes and I did not know what happened," she said.
Her husband, 32-year-old Marcus, and their two-year-old son, Mark, were asleep in the living room. The family live at Centenary Street, Princes Town.
Procope, a geriatric nurse, said her son had no heartbeat or pulse. "I rushed over to my mother-in-law's house, and then we went to the Princes Town Hospital, but the nurse just took him inside, they did not tell me anything. It was not until the police came that I was told my baby was dead," she said.
Procope smiled when she recalled the few days she spent with her baby. "He would have turned three weeks today. I am still feeling him in my arms. I cannot believe he is dead. It really hurting my heart. I know I probably crushed him because I was really drowsy," she said.
When the Sunday Express visited yesterday, Procope was preparing for her son's funeral. "I am trying to clean up and give my child a good funeral. We did not get to christen him, so I want to do a service here," she said.
The child's body was taken to the Forensic Science Centre, St James, where an autopsy would determine how he died.
