Sunday, October 27 would have been little Tavia Michella Ximenes Da Costa’s second birthday, filled with all the joy and excitement of any happy celebration.
Instead, she is lying in a tiny grave, her life cut unbearably and needlessly short as the alleged victim of murder and cruelty, the details of which were described by a judge as “extremely disturbing”.
Three people who shared Tavia’s home at the time of her death have appeared in court.
Januaria Sarmento Ximenes (29) is charged with murder while his partner and mother of the child Suzi Augusta Jacinta Da Costa (21) is charged with manslaughter.
She and her sister, Suzana Da Costa Ximenes (24) are charged with causing death knowing Tavia died by an unlawful act.
All three, who resided at Windmill Court, Dungannon are accused of child cruelty between August 1 to October 13.
The court heard Ximenes wasn’t Tavia’s father but began a relationship with Da Costa in June, moving into her two-bedroom home with her and her sister in August.
On that awful Sunday morning of 13 October, Da Costa rang her mother stating there was something wrong with Tavia.
Her mother said to take the child to hospital, noting Da Costa was “normal and calm”.
She refused, instead asking her mother to come to the house.
Accompanied by her brother, the mother was met at the door by Ximenes who, relaxed and emotionless said, “Let’s resolve this as a family”
Tavia was found in bed, covered with a blanket and had been dead for some time.
While her brother rang for an ambulance, Ximenes told him, “I’m a good man. That’s why I saved your niece.”
On arrival paramedics notified police and the defendants were arrested.
A postmortem found Tavia was covered in bruises including to her head and face, with grip marks to her arms and a scald burn on her ear.
Death was from brain injury caused by blunt force trauma.
During interview Da Costa claimed her daughter had fallen and insisted Ximenes was “a great guy”.
She then switched to claiming he was violent to her and Tavia, with this increasing from 9 October but despite this left her alone with him the next day while she went for a pregnancy test.
Da Costa, “Didn’t describe any fatal attack on Tavia. She said her breathing was terrible on Saturday night although didn’t seek help. In the morning, Tavia was dead.”
Ms Ximenes said she hadn’t seen Tavia since October 8 and went to an all-night party on the Friday then slept throughout Saturday, then changed this to an all-day on Friday after which she remained in her room for 21 hours.
She didn’t like Ximenes and stayed out of his way, but insisted she didn’t see or hear anything.
A detective sergeant said Ximenes has previous convictions including threatening an ex-partner with a knife in 2023.
In 2022 he attacked another ex-partner and prior to that he followed a 13-year-old child into the toilets of a McDonald’s restaurant, pushed her against a cubicle and slapped her face.
The detective described him as “a violent liar” and at the time of Tavia’s death was the subject of four Arrest Warrants, but he couldn’t be located.
While neither woman have previous records the detective said Da Costa, “Didn’t report the death of her child and was prepared to cover it up.”
In terms of Ms Ximenes, he said, “A reasonable person wouldn’t believe she was in that house but heard and saw nothing.”
Her lawyer argued the cruelty charge didn’t apply as she was not the primary carer and, “All responsibility for the child was with the mother.”
However District Judge Oonagh Mullan disagreed stating, “This is an extremely disturbing case. There were three people in that house (apart from Tavia) when something happened. To say Ms Ximenes wasn’t aware just cannot be accepted. She lived in that house.”
All three accused were refused bail and will appear again by video-link at Dungannon Magistrates’ Court on 13 November.
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