The teenager who died following a suspected gang-rape at Port Mourant, Corentyne would have celebrated her 18th birthday on July 28 and her mother is anguished that her killers are still on the loose three months later.
In an interview, Kamaldai ‘Leila’ Bennie, 38, of Crabwood Creek told Stabroek News that she prays every day that she would at least find out who killed her daughter Deokali Peter. On May 6, around 5.30 am cane harvesters had found 17-year-old groaning in pain and lying naked along the side of the road obliquely opposite the Dusk Till Dawn bar. One of the men gave Peter his shirt to cover herself and they took her to nearby residents who assisted her with a pair of pants. The teen asked for some water and after the residents gave it to her they returned indoors.
Peter 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 had told Stabroek News that her daughter’s body bore scratches on her neck and forehead and that there were “black and blue marks on her right side.” She had said that she would not rest until her daughter’s killers are brought to justice. She said too she wanted to find out who the killers were and though she does not plan to “do anything to them” she often wonders if they could be anyone she passes on the street or if they were watching her. The woman said “It worrying me to know how my daughter get killed; I really taking it on. Just how they do that to me daughter they can do it to somebody else.”
Bennie said every day she grieves her daughter, adding that “Me woulda accept if she was sick… but the way she dead; it hurting me a lot.”
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…”
A police source told this newspaper that several persons had been arrested in connection with the teen’s death and subsequently released. “We had reasons to suspect that they were involved but we have no evidence to link anyone at this point in time. We kept them for the maximum 72 hours…” the source said, adding that the investigations would go on until the matter was solved. This newspaper also understands that three weeks ago a file had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecution for advice.
One of the teen’s acquaintances who works at the Embassy Club bar had told this newspaper that on the said night she was drinking at Dusk Till Dawn with two male friends when Peter entered with a group of young men around 11 pm.
She said the teen asked for a cigarette and though she appeared to be intoxicated she continued drinking. According to police reports, the waitresses at the bar said after the bar closed at about 1 am they saw Peter sitting alone on the side of the road. Bennie said she cannot understand “how dey coulda leave she alone on the road at that hour, knowing the state she was in?
Why they didn’t pick she up and tek she home?” The woman is convinced that her daughter could have been alive “if only dem didn’t behave so selfish. I know me daughter was wrong to be out on the road so late but… that din have to happen to she… she din deserve to die like that.”
A market vendor, Bennie reminisced that her daughter “was very helpful…everything me had to do she would run and do it for me. She used to come with me to the market and lift all the heavy bags like a man; she did not want me to do any hard work.” The woman related that her daughter had started to follow “bad company” and that she had moved out of her home about two years though she had no fixed place of abode.
Peter had stayed at the home of a female friend at Hampshire Squatting Area one month prior to her death.
Bennie admitted too that her daughter did not grow up in a stable environment and that she and her siblings often witnessed their alcoholic father abuse her. She said when she was 27-years-old and pregnant with her last child, her then 32-year-old husband beat her and she moved out of the home with her children. Bennie said a few days later he asked her to go back home with him and she refused and the man committed suicide. Bennie said her eldest daughter quit school to take care of her younger siblings and after some time Peter refused to go back to school so she decided to take her along with her to the market to keep her out of trouble.
Peter was the third of six siblings and would often take money and presents for her younger siblings whenever she visited her mother. Bennie said when her daughter was away she called almost daily and that she had last seen her two days before her death. The woman said her daughter had planned a big 18th birthday celebration.
