Autopsy: Gasparillo girl, 3, drowned

AN autopsy on the body of the three-year-old Gasparillo girl found unresponsive in a small inflatable pool in the yard of her home on Monday, revealed that she drowned.

The autopsy was done at the Forensic Sciences Centre in St James on Thursday afternoon, police said.

A relative told Newsday that the funeral for Maria Khan, who would have turned four on September 28, is set for next week. The time and location are yet to be finalised.

The girl’s mother Mary Mahabir, 22, reported that she went to the bathroom on Monday afternoon and left her daughter alone and playing in a bedroom at the family’s home in Maharaj Trace.

Mahabir said when she left the bathroom she went to the bedroom to check on the child but she was not there.

When Mahabir looked outside, she saw her daughter motionless in the pool. Mahabir said she ran and grabbed the child out the pool and started to do CPR.

Ambulance personnel transported Maria to the San Fernando General Hospital, where she was later declared dead. Gasparillo police are investigating.

In January 2020, Maria’s father, Roger Khan, 23, was shot dead at his home at Ecclesville in Rio Claro. Gunmen passed relatives in the house and shot him while he was asleep. The killers remain at large two years after the incident.