The prime suspect in the death of a ten-month-old baby was her own mother, a Coroner?s Inquest heard yesterday.

Renee Erma Daniels 35, of Verdmont Valley View, Smiths was charged with killing her daughter, Samira M. Daniels, on a date between November 23 and 24 in 1998.

She was charged 12 months ago and there has been a stay of proceedings or ?nolle prosequi?. The Department of Public Prosecutions and the Police Service have reserved the right to prosecute in the future.

However, Samira?s father, Philip Paul Daniels, was not even questioned by Police.

Neither parent received psychological counselling after their daughter?s death.

They did not ask to see the volumes of medical information relating to Samira?s death because she could not afford it, she said.

?I must say for the record I feel an immense level of frustration regarding this matter,? Coroner Mark Pettingill said. He will deliver his verdict as to the cause of Samira?s death today.

In Magistrates? Court yesterday, Mrs. Daniels admitted she had been arrested in connection with her daughter?s death in June, 2004.

?I was arrested last year as a result of Det. Jason Smith receiving a letter from a Canadian doctor,? she said. ?The letter stated Samira?s injuries occurred 12 hours prior to her going to hospital.?

Coroner Pettingill said three other doctors confirmed that she was shaken well before she died. One of the doctors was Dr. Valerie Rao, a medical examiner from Missouri, who has participated in dozens of forensic examinations here at the request of Police over the past decade.

Mrs. Daniels said she did not shake her daughter to death.

?I never thought I would be arrested for her murder,? she said. ?I was surprised because the case was never attended for so long. I did everything in my power to to seek justice.?

In order to find justice she went to both the Police Commissioner and the US Consulate.

Mrs. Daniels is originally from Chicago where three of her sons died in a house-fire in 1987. She said she understood why Police were suspicious of her.

She could not remember when she picked her daughter up from nursery on November 23, 1998, but that Samira was home with her parents and brother at 8 p.m.

In a statement to Police on January 12, 1999, she said her husband tended to Samira that night.

?What was unusual on the night of November 23, was that Samira woke up sometime before midnight,? Mrs. Daniels said. ?She was not ill or had a temperature. I can?t remember if she cried. My husband attended to her that night.?

She said Samira was not a fussy baby except when she was hungry or wanted her mother?s attention.

?If it happened yesterday I could have remembered,? she said. ?It?s hard to remember her face even in my mind.?

Samira?s paediatrician, Dr. June Hill told Mrs. Daniels that Samira suffered from separation anxiety, she said.

No one else entered her home on the night before she died.

?We don?t have a lot of company coming in and out of our house,? she said, adding that she thought Samira died from a ?fall at her baby-sitters?.

But she said she understood Samira died from being shaken, not from falling off a bed.

Samira was a healthy, well-cared for baby, she said. And she denied that ?something had gone terribly wrong? that night.

?What has gone wrong is that I?m standing here talking to you all these years later,? she said.