Police question mother and son over allegations of child poisoning
“I’ll send you my lawyer’s number.” That’s all a grandmother who is facing allegations of conniving with her son to kill her grandson could say when she was asked to comment on the damning allegations.
The 55-year-old grandmother, Eva Kadimo, and her 34-year-old son, Thato Kadimo, were this week dragged to the police station in Bobonong to be questioned on allegations of a plot to poison the woman’s 11-year-old grandson.
In a telephone interview, Station Commander, Paul Seoko, has confirmed that, acting on a tip-off, police brought in Kadimo and Thato of Rasetimela ward in an investigation of attempting to feed the woman’s grandson fresh potato chips and chocolate sweets suspected to have been laced with poison.
“It appears that the goodies contained poison. Someone called the school to caution that the grandson, who is doing Standard Six, should not eat the food since they contained poison,” said the police boss.
“The food was later fed to chickens and those chickens that ate the chips died on the spot, therefore we have seized the plastic that contained the chips as well as the chickens for testing at our forensic laboratory,” said Seoko.
The two suspects are currently under investigation and possible charges that they may face are that of malicious administering poison with intention to cause harm.
“If found guilty, they would face imprisonment of years not exceeding 14,” he said.
Details pertaining to the incident have indicated that the grandma, in an effort to help her son who was struggling to pay his monthly child support fee, jointly worked with the young man on an evil plan to eliminate the grandson.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the duo had also planned to cash in from the child’s life cover insurance payout.
According to a source close to the family, it is said that last Monday, the grandmother reportedly put poison in fresh potato chips and went to Rasetimela Primary School to give the food to the unsuspecting boy.
The evil plot was, however, allegedly foiled when the class teacher received a cautionary call not to let the child eat the chips and he subsequently called the mother of the child to alert her.
Meanwhile, the mother, who is still in shock, was reluctant to comment on the issue as she said, “Imagine if it was your child who experienced this trauma.”
The duo that was initially detained in police cells have since been released from police custody on grounds that the exhibits had been taken for testing at the police by Forensics Unit.
Both mother and son refused to comment. The mother promised to provide their lawyer’s number instead but never did.
Meanwhile, the police boss has urged parents to encourage their children to refrain from accepting and eating food from strangers.
“Teachers should also not receive anything, especially food directed to students without the parents’ knowledge because they can never know the sources’ intentions,” Seoko cautioned.