The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

A WOMAN who pleaded guilty to trying to burn her son alive in a car told police officers at the time of the arrest that something came over her.

On November 24, 2010, Rosita McKenzie was seen by a witness on Allen Drive near the Haitian Village leaving her house on two occasions with a burning cloth in her hand and throwing it in the car and its gas tank.

The third time she left the house, she had a little boy in her hands and put him into the burning vehicle.

When McKenzie was arrested and interviewed by police, she said she had not intended to kill her son but she wasn’t normal that day.

“Something just came over me,” she said.

McKenzie, 28, pleaded guilty to an attempted murder charge in a plea agreement with the Crown and is now on three years probation on condition that she does not get in trouble with the law and gets help.

Failure to obey these and other conditions to be given to her will result in McKenzie spending three years at Her Majesty’s Prison.

In yesterday’s proceedings before Justice Indra Charles, prior to the plea agreement being signed, prosecutor Darnell Dorsett went over the facts of the case.

On the day in question, around 9:30am, a man was sitting in his vehicle parked across from Allen Drive waiting for a co-worker when he saw a slim dark woman leaving a yellow coloured house with a burning cloth in her hand.

She tossed the cloth into the vehicle and went back into the house and returned with another burning cloth.

When she went back into the house, she came back out with a child and put him into the burning vehicle.

The man observing this then got out of his vehicle and ran over to the burning car with an extinguisher to assist and get the boy out.

The boy was removed from the car at the same time that McKenzie came out of the house with a lighter.

Police arrived on the scene and asked her what she was doing before cautioning and arresting her.

McKenzie participated in a record of an interview at the Carmichael Road police station when she claimed that she did not put her child in the car, but that the boy got into car on his own.

She told police that she had beaten her son that morning with a bat and although she was a substance user, had not taken drugs that day.

McKenzie claimed she had not intended to kill her son, but admitted that she wasn’t normal that day.

“Something just came over me,” she said, adding that her son was able to get himself out of the car.

She also told police that she just wanted to scare her son and that while aware the car could have exploded, she didn’t care at the time because she was hearing voices.

Police interviewed the then four-year-old boy who said that his mother put him into the car and told him to sit in it.

The plea agreement was signed and the judge warned McKenzie of her obligation to not breach the probation conditions that started from yesterday’s date.

“You need to go to a programme for substance abuse and whatever else the psychiatrist recommends,” Justice Charles told the woman.

“Should you do anything else, you will be in custody, okay?” the judge told McKenzie, who answered “yes”.

Terrell Butler, the attorney representing McKenzie, told the court that she wished for the psychiatrist from Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre to make his recommendations to the court on what McKenzie needs.

Prosecutor Dorsett also suggested vocational training for the unemployed mother.

Justice Charles ordered that a probation, social inquiry and psychiatric report be delivered to the court on or before July 7.