Rutherford allegedly gave her one-year-old Jabari Codogan and four-year-old Odascia Codogan two halves of one carbon tablet, which caused their deaths on March 27, 2014. The accused, however, maintained that she thought she was buying cold tablets for them and not rat poison.
“Who would go to the Plaisance Bus Park to buy cold tablets from a man that sells rat poison?” was the question State Prosecutor Tiffini Lyken had put to the 12 member-jury during her closing address at Rutherford’s manslaughter trial on Wednesday.
She also drank two of the same tablets and was hospitalised for several days.
During the hearing before Justice Navinda Singh, Jabari Codogan Sr, testified via Skype from Brooklyn, New York that he supported his children even after he separated from Rutherford.
Although, he communicated with them every day, he was not told that they were suffering from a cold.
Awena and the children were staying with the defendant’s sister, Monica Sealey and her husband, Curt, who both testified that they never noticed the children suffering from any cold symptoms prior to their deaths.