Autopsy on Tariq Toney on Thursday

AN autopsy is scheduled to be done on Thursday on the body of 12-year-old Tariq Toney, who died from a knife wound to the neck on Monday.

A negative covid 19 test on the body on Wednesday gave the green light for the autopsy.

Police are hoping its findings will give them a clearer picture of how a knife, which they have seized, penetrated the boy's neck, cutting a blood vessel that may have led to his bleeding to death.

Toney, who was enjoying his first week of the school vacation, was reportedly cutting coconuts at the back of his family's home at Sixth Company Circular, Indian Walk, Moruga, around 5.30 pm on Monday.

The last of three children, he was a Standard Four student of Fifth Company Baptist Primary School, the scene of a protest last week for additional teachers.

His mother, Jayloy Toney-Clarke, told the police she was in a bedroom in the house with her husband Anthony Clarke at the time of the incident.

She said Toney cut a coconut and handed it to her through a window. She reportedly drank some of the water and gave it back to him.

Shortly after, she said, she called him to come inside and take a bath. About a minute later, Toney came into her room, bleeding from the wound to his neck.

She said he told her, “Look what happen, Mum, look what happen.”

She said she called the EHS,but after waiting some time for them to arrive, she contacted her brother Owen Toney, who lives at Manahambre Road, Princes Town, to take them for help.

The child was put in the tray of Owen’s Isuzu van and taken to the Princes Town Health Facility.

On his arrival shortly after 7 pm, he was unresponsive. Doctors and nurses tried to resuscitate him, but around 7.50 he was pronounced dead.

A medical report said he suffered “a three-centimetre-long puncture wound at least eight centimetres deep...to the right side of his neck.”

Investigations are continuing.