She was a happy Nelson mum – until her partner murdered their baby in the bath. Now the man who killed her daughter has been sentenced, Chontelle ourphy shares her devastating story oinutes before the man she now calls “the monster” drowned her baby daughter in the bath, Chontelle ourphy remembers him asking a question that will always haunt her.
“He said, ‘Do you want another baby?'” says Chontelle (27), as tears roll down her face.
“I said, ‘I don’t know what I want, Kevin. I just want to look after Alyssa; she’s my main priority and I love her with all my heart.’ And that’s when he took her.
“Had I known what the monster was going to do, I would have run with her.”
The last time Chontelle saw seven-month-old Alyssa alive she was sitting on her dad’s knee in the family bathtub, splashing the water with her chubby little fists and gurgling with delight. Chontelle gave Alyssa her favourite bath toy and left. Not long after, she would return to find Alyssa floating face down in the water, her tiny fingers limp and purple, and her body lifeless – drowned by her own father.
A fortnight ago, and a year after Alyssa’s death, Kevin Joseph Charles Little (28) of Kaitangata, South otago, was jailed for life with a non-parole period of 17 years for the murder of Alyssa.
The tragic day was one that started normally.
Chontelle breastfed Alyssa before heading out into the garden of the home she and Kevin shared. Kevin held Alyssa as he and Chontelle spoke about him moving out of the house the following oonday. Then he took Alyssa back indoors until Chontelle called him to help her pull a stump out of the garden. The work made him dirty and he decided to have a bath, asking Chontelle if Alyssa could take a bath too. She agreed, knowing Alyssa loved bathtime.
“She would splash about for hours if she could,” Chontelle says.
As he left, Kevin asked her about another baby. Chontelle continued working in the garden for a further 10 minutes before being called into the house by Kevin. He asked for Alyssa’s ducky and a few other bath toys, and that was her last glimpse of her daughter alive. Chontelle didn’t fully pull the bathroom door closed before she went back to working in the garden.
“I don’t know how long it had been but I heard a loud moan and I knew something wasn’t right.
“I ran inside and up the stairs and saw Kevin standing behind the door. He was staring into the bath.
“Alyssa was floating face down, dead, in the bath. I picked her up and said to Kevin, ‘What have you done?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.'”
“It was awkward to pick up Alyssa from the bath because her head flopped back and she was heavy,” whispers Chontelle, struggling to continue.
“I lay her on a change table and started doing CPR. Her mouth was blue and she made a gurgling noise.
“Kevin came into the room and stood there crying. I yelled, ‘Call an ambulance. What are you thinking?’ He came back in with the phone but he was babbling and crying, so I grabbed the phone off him and told 111 we needed an ambulance, I gave them the address and said my baby had drowned.”
Chontelle, who had once studied nursing, decided to give Alyssa a back blow to dislodge water from her lungs but it seemed nothing would resuscitate her.
“I was doing all I could but blood and water started foaming out of her nose and mouth. Then the police arrived and took over the CPR. I went to the kitchen and Kevin was standing there naked, so I got him some boxer shorts.
“I then collapsed in the hallway and told my neighbour, who had come to comfort me, ‘I’m not going to lose my baby today.’ I stood up again and told the police, ‘I’m going to save my baby.'”
Chontelle went in the ambulance with Alyssa to Nelson Hospital. While the medical team worked to revive her child, Chontelle realised Kevin hadn’t arrived at the hospital.
“I was alone when the medical team stood back from the table and the paediatrician came over and said, ‘I’m so sorry, we can’t save her.’
“I sat in a room by myself, because my family and best friend were away, and I got to cuddle Alyssa. Later a friend came in to be with me, then two hours later the staff asked for my baby. And that was the last time I would see her when she was warm.”
Chontelle and Kevin had met in Australia at a training programme for a car-parts company they both worked for. The couple had a holiday fling and thought nothing further would come of it, until Chontelle realised she was pregnant.
“It was surreal to discover I was pregnant because I was using contraception,” she recalls.
“I told Kevin the night I found out and he was stoked about the news.”
Two months before Alyssa’s birth, Kevin moved to Nelson to be with Chontelle and their unborn baby. But by the time Alyssa was born in September 2005, Chontelle was unsure about having Kevin in her life.
“I never really loved him,” she confesses. “I wasn’t attracted to him but I thought I had to give him a chance to be around his baby.
“When Alyssa was born he was amazing. He would get up in the middle of the night and change her nappies. He was so proud at the start.”
But things started to deteriorate when Kevin quit his managerial job at a car-parts store, saying he was stressed, depressed and having “dark thoughts”.
“He would just lie on the sofa,” Chontelle says.
“It was like something snapped. He used to wipe Alyssa’s saliva off her chin and put it all over her face, saying he was “painting”. I would give them “daddy time” together but in the two weeks before he killed her, he would just put her on the floor with her toys. He stopped interacting with her. It was very strange.”
Chontelle was relieved when Kevin finally seemed to accept that she wanted to split up with him. He agreed to move out of their house, which Chontelle’s mother owned.
“I was ready to start a new life with Alyssa away from Kevin’s controlling ways and watching eyes,” Chontelle reveals.
But she never got the chance, and now she is trying to rebuild her life without her beloved daughter.
Not once did the first-time mother doubt that Kevin was guilty. But dealing with the investigation and court appearances was nothing compared to living with that last image of Alyssa face down in the bath.
“I remember going to her room after she died and smelling her clothes. The whole world looked different,” Chontelle says.
“It felt like my world had just crumbled in. I wouldn’t wish this upon anybody.”
Chontelle agrees that Kevin’s jail period is fair. The jury took only two-and-a-half hours to find him guilty of murdering his daughter.
“How could a father kill his child?” she wonders. “I hope he spends 17 years thinking about what he’s done.
“What I hate Kevin for the most is that I had to see Alyssa like that. I had to resuscitate her. I had to clean her room and organise her funeral. And most of all, I had to see that tiny coffin come in my door.”
Since her baby died, Chontelle has lost 30kg in weight and much of her hair has fallen out from stress. She credits friends and family with helping her through the pain.
“I’ll never get over losing her. She was a light in all our lives and the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
By Rebecca Milne
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