Hyacinth Poouahi, 37, said she called a doctor to seek medical treatment for the girl, but said the doctor's office staff told her they would not be able to treat the girl unless the girl's mother was present.

"I didn't know that she had an infection," Poouahi said. "Like I told the detectives, I tried to get in touch with her mom so I could get her some medical help."

People who know the family said the girl's mother would often leave the child with friends, and police said the girl was most recently left with Poouahi's family in the rural 'Ainaloa Estates subdivision in Puna for about three months.

On Feb. 7, the family called an ambulance, and a fire department rescue crew took the girl to Hilo Medical Center with what police described as "festering head and body wounds."

After seeing her injuries, hospital staff called police and she was flown to the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children on O'ahu.

The girl was last reported as unconscious and in "very critical condition" at the hospital.

After the girl was taken to the hospital, state Child Welfare Services workers removed five other children from the 'Ainaloa home where she had been staying, but there have been no arrests in the case, police said.

In a telephone interview Friday night, Poouahi said the girl suffered some minor scratches at Poouahi's home, and said over the past month the girl began digging flesh out of the wounds and making them worse.

When visitors to the home on Woodrose Drive asked the girl why she was hurting herself, the girl would reply that she did it because "Auntie Hya is going to send her away," Poouahi said.

Poouahi said she treated the wounds with disinfectant and bandages, but that the sores became worse in a few days before Feb. 7. Poouahi said she attempted to reach the child's mother, but her calls were not returned.

"I know as an adult I should have just took her to ER and done what I was supposed to do," she said.

"To be honest with you, that's the most guiltiest things that I did wrong, because everybody's making me out to be a murderer, like I let this happen to this girl, and I really loved her and I would put my life on the line for her," Poouahi said.

Poouahi said she had a letter from the girl's mother naming her as caregiver. "That was the only thing, people was telling me they were not going to accept the paper, and what was I supposed to do?"

Poouahi said she had been trying to win permission to visit the child in the hospital in Honolulu, but has not been able to do so yet.

"I just want her to know that I'm still there and I still love her," she said.

Child Welfare Services now has legal custody of the child.

Poouahi said she has been traumatized by the loss of custody of her own children.

Neighbors have said they saw the girl running, playing and apparently healthy as recently as a month ago, but hadn't seen her more recently.

Neighbors in 'Ainaloa have said the girl's mother had a boyfriend who apparently did not want the child around. Kathy Sanchez of Kea'au, a mother of three who took the girl into her home for much of 2003, has said it seemed that the mother "was more into her freedom and her old man."