I didn’t help to steal the baby
Second newborn found in pit latrine in days
When Aaliah Wray pleaded in THE STAR with her baby boy’s abductors to return him, many social media users suggested that the other young mother who introduced her to a woman promising baby supplies was involved.
However, the woman in question, Misha Dennie, has refuted those claims.
“I have absolutely nothing to do with her baby being stolen. I could not live with myself, and what kind of sin would I be leaving to drop on my daughter’s shoulders? I have absolutely nothing to do with the missing baby,” she said.
Wray’s son, Nyyear Frank, was snatched from her arms along Rousseau Road in St Andrew on October 13.
Dennie said that like Wray, I was also supposed to meet a woman she met online, who gave her name as Shannakay, who promised to give them baby clothes.
Speaking from her home in Kingston yesterday, Dennie, 17, said she was just trying to help when she introduced Wray to Shannakay.
Dennie, who has a seven-month-old daughter, said she also met Wray on Instagram last December where she gave her prenatal tips.
“We began communicating often online and I even told her what she needed to bring to the clinic and so on. I even followed her to do ultrasound,” said Dennie.
She said that after they exchanged numbers, Wray expressed that she was having financial difficulties.
A few days later, Shannakay posted on gossip site Pinkwall that she had some baby clothes and other items giving away.
“She stated that her baby had
Talready outgrown the stuff, so I commented under the post that I have a friend who was in need of them. On September the 24th, the female that made the post on Pinkwall texted me and asked how I would get the stuff. I told her she could drop them off by my home and Aaliah would pick them up from me,” she said.
Regular conversations
Dennie said that Shannakay began having regular conversations with her and Wray and even said that she worked at the Ministry of Health and had a $30,000 voucher to give to Dennie.
Dennie said that Shannakay also planned to meet them in Half-Way Tree on October 11 to deliver the items.
“We were both there with our babies and Shannakay had told us that she would send a taxi for us so she could drop off the things at our home. There was one particular taxi that kept beeping but I didn’t pay it any mind. We were there waiting on Shannakay for hours at Clock Tower Plaza but she never showed up and we left,” she said.
The following day (Saturday), Dennie said Shannakay called again, saying that her phone battery had died, hence her no-show.
According to the teenager, Shannakay told her that she would he Esson Castle community in St Ann is in shock following the discovery of a baby girl in a pit toilet. This incident comes on the heels of last week’s report of a baby boy who was found in a pit toilet in Cox Piece, St Mary.
THE WEEKEND STAR learnt that the girl was found on Wednesday night and was transported to the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital for treatment.
It is not clear who made the discovery, but, according to the commanding officer for St Ann, Senior Superintendent Calvin Small, the police were called at 8 p.m. meet them after church that Sunday and stated that she was going to meet Wray first because her church was close to Cross Roads.
Though expressing sympathy for Wray, Dennie said she told her not to carry the baby to meet the woman.
“She told me that the lady wanted to see the baby. Mi even go as far as ask her how she going to collect grocery and baby clothes and carry baby,” she said. “I would never set her up and let anyone take her child.”
Our news team understands that while the fire department was getting the child out of the pit, the mother slipped away.
“During the process of the police trying to retrieve the baby, she (the mother) left the scene so they are in the process of trying to locate her,” Small said.
One resident reported that the child’s mother said that she went to the bathroom to use it and that was when the baby fell out.
Paul McFarlane, councillor for the Calderwood division in which Esson Castle is located, said that he is surprised and broken-hearted by the incident, and said that residents are puzzled.
“It is just disturbing and appalling for the people who reside in the area. It is heart-wrenching because even community members were saying that they could have taken the child,” he said.
McFarlane said that the community is one that “stays together”.
“It is a small community. I would say that most people are related, maybe not biologically but how they live, they are like a family. Everybody knows everybody. A lot of our communities are so depressed and when these things happen to them (young people) like early pregnancy, I don’t think they have hope,” he said.