Asiata said Child Welfare Services officials had taken the toddler, Cyrus Belt, away when he was about a year old. Belt was to turn 2 in February.

State Department of Human Services officials, who oversee Child Welfare Services, said they are currently involved in discussions with the office of the city prosecutor and the Honolulu Police Department about whether they can

release state records relating to Belt and his mother Nancy Asiata.

Lilo Asiata said a relative called the state "because my daughter had not being around to help take care of him."

"I have no ill feelings toward anyone" about the boy's death, said Lilo Asiata. "This whole thing I pretty much blame myself because I failed to do some things that I should have done before, and I failed to heed some of the warnings that I saw."

He said there were "warnings" regarding his daughter and her boyfriend, but declined to elaborate, saying "I can't really think right now."

When asked if his daughter or her boyfriend were involved with drugs, Lilo Asiata said: "She was under CPS (child protective services). I know she had to go in several times to get tested, but so far every time she got tested, somehow they would send the son back. CPS took the boy before and they released him the very next day."

He said his daughter, Nancy Chanco, 33, has two other sons. The oldest, a teenager, lives with his father on O'ahu. The younger son, 4, lives with Chanco's mother.

Lilo Asiata said his daughter asked him to watch Cyrus earlier Thursday morning and that he went to sleep after she returned. He said she didn't wake him before she left again.

"My daughter and her boyfriend, if only they had woken me up and let me know that they were leaving, then I would be up," he said. "I've been baby-sitting the boy ever since day one. And this boy was my whole life."

A neighbor said they heard Chanco screaming Thursday evening when she learned what happened to her son.

"She was screaming. ... 'You should have been here.'