The mother of the 18-year-old waitress who died after a suspected gang rape at Port Mourant, Corentyne on May 6 said she would not rest until the culprits are caught and brought to justice.
Cane harvesters found the teen, Deokali Peter, naked on the roadside around 5:30 am obliquely opposite Dusk Till Dawn, a bar at Port Mourant – where she was seen drinking the night before – groaning in pain.
One of them gave her his shirt to cover herself while they took her to nearby residents who assisted her with pants. Peter who was shivering asked the residents for some water and they gave it to her and returned indoors.
The teen who was employed at the Santa Rosa bar on the Corentyne appeared to be dead around 8 am. Eyewitnesses related that she was covered with mud and her clothes which police later found nearby were also muddy.
Her mother, Kamaldai “Leila” Bennie, 37, had told Stabroek News (SN) that her daughter’s body bore scratches on her neck and forehead and that there were “black and blue marks on her right side.”
A post-mortem report found that Peter died from “drowning” and that “mud was found in her stomach.” Bennie said that the doctor also related to her that apart from raping her, the attackers apparently pushed her down in a nearby trench.
Pathologist, Dr. Vivekanand Brijmohan explained to this newspaper that the “drowning” was as a result of a “post-immersion syndrome” and that “drowning by itself meant that a person may have taken in some water but may not die immediately [but suffer] the effects of delayed drowning…”
The pathologist said too that the teen’s “body had mud particles all around and it was impacted at the base of the finger nails. On the anterior neck there was a series of abrasions, although there were no injuries to the internal structures of the neck.”
Further, Dr. Brijmohan made it clear that muddy particles were found in Peter’s “voice box and in the airways” while the stomach contained one and half pints of muddy liquid. There was also mud in the upper part of the small intestine,” he pointed out.
Bennie told SN yesterday that “It worrying me to know how my daughter get killed; I really taking it on. I won’t rest until they find who kill she… Just how they do that to me daughter they can do it to somebody else.”
She also lamented, “If they get off now they gon feel that they can get off again. I wasn’t there to see what happen and I don’t know who do it; but even if they get off now they won’t get off from God…”
Several persons who were arrested following the incident have been released but police sources said that investigations are still ongoing.
Peter who hailed from Skeldon left home two years ago and had no fixed place of abode. She had stayed at the home of a female friend at Hampshire Squatting Area for the past month.
Bennie had told this newspaper that she last saw her daughter when she visited her two days before her demise. The third of six siblings, Peter visited her mother “every two weeks” and would take money and presents for her and her younger siblings.
One of the teen’s acquaintances who works at the Embassy Club bar had told this newspaper that she was drinking at Dusk Till Dawn with two male friends when she saw Peter entering with a group of young men around 11 pm.
She said that Peter who appeared to be intoxicated asked for a cigarette and remained at the bar with the men and continued drinking. The friend said she left to go home and didn’t hear anything about Peter after that.
According to police reports, the waitresses at Dusk Till Dawn related that after the bar closed up at 1 am they saw Peter sitting alone on the roadside.
