Death By ‘Béntoa’: Police Quiz Woman, 23, Over Son’s Death

A 23-year-old woman has allegedly administered dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (popularly known as DDT) to her one-and-a-half-year-old baby through the anus, leading to his death. DDT is a colourless, crystalline, tasteless and almost odourless organochloride known for its insecticidal properties. It was one of the first chemicals in widespread use as a pesticide but was banned in most developed countries in the 1970s. The suspect, Regina Lamptey, unemployed and mother of three, who is currently in the grip of the Amasaman Police, was said to have forced the undiluted DDT into the intestines of her son with the help of a syringe. Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Amasaman District Police Crime Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mr Sebastian Adigiya, said Regina, who lived with her parents and her three children in a compound house at Obeyeyie, near Amasaman, claimed she administered the chemical as enema to treat the boy of his abnormal body temperature. Mr Adigiya said Regina administered the enema about 7 a.m. on April 10, 2015 and found the boy dead some minutes later in her room. He said the boy’s grandmother reported to the police on April 11, 2015 that her daughter had confessed administering DDT to her son. The grandmother told the police that she (the grandmother) had travelled to a village known as Yaa Oman in the Greater Accra Region on April 8, 2015 and returned on April 10, 2014 and did not know her daughter had administered the DDT to the boy. According to the grandmother, Regina had told family members who had questioned her over her child's mysterious death that an unidentified person whom she had met while carrying her sick baby on her back prescribed DDT to her. Mr Adigiya said after administering the enema, Regina put the sick child on her bed while she stayed outside to cook. “A few minutes later, she returned to the room and found her baby foaming in the mouth. She started screaming that her baby had died, which attracted some neighbours,” he said. The baby was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Baby buried The family later decided to bury the body right away at a cemetery at Obeyeyie. Mr Adigiya said the police would exhume the body to ascertain the actual cause of death. He said Regina had failed to mention the name of the person who had recommended the DDT to her. The police, he said, had since retrieved a sample of the DDT and the syringe used for the enema. The suspect, he said, had been charged with murder and was being processed for court.

Source: Daily Graphic

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