Months before Neesa Lalita Gopaul’s body was found at Emerald Tower she told relatives that she was locked in her room by her mother’s lover and also sent emails to a US-based relative in which she reportedly spoke of other instances of abuse, drug use and her father’s “suspicious” death.
As investigations continue into Neesa’s tragic death and the details of abuse she reportedly suffered some relatives now regret not listening to the teen and are voicing suspicion about her father’s death.
Neesa’s mother, the woman’s lover and his legally wedded wife remained in police custody yesterday. Crime Chief Seelall Persaud told this newspaper that investigations are ongoing and it was still too soon to indicate when or if charges will be instituted against the suspects.
Before her death Neesa made several attempts to speak with paternal relatives who she’d been barred from seeing after the death of her father Moonsammy Gopaul last September. In correspondence via telephone, e-mail and Facebook messages the 16-year-old told relatives that her mother was trying to sell the Leonora property where they lived.
Krishnama Sukhra, the teen’s paternal aunt, told this newspaper yesterday that about three months after her brother, Moonsammy, died Neesa called her and spoke about her mother’s plan to sell the Leonora property. The property was willed to Neesa and her 5-year-old sister and relatives believe that the teen was murdered because others had “designs on getting the place for themselves”.
After that phone call, Sukhra said, Neesa again contacted her cousin, this time by Facebook and told the same story about the property. The teen, according to the woman, also said that she had “other things” to tell them.
“After my brother dead and this woman (Neesa’s mother) stop us from having any contact with the children and we live all the way in Crabwood Creek we weren’t sure what to do,” Sukhra said.
Meanwhile, a US-based relative told Stabroek News that months before Neesa’s father died the teen emailed her several times. The relative alleged that the teen had told her that she did not believe that her father died naturally and also sent several pictures of what Moonsammy looked like on the day he died. Neesa, the relative alleged, begged her not to say anything to her mother.
Sally Redman, a maternal aunt who was directly involved in the matter, told Stabroek News that she gave a statement to police. The woman said there were many things she could no longer discuss with the media as a result because it would create a conflict of interest.
However, she explained that she lived in Barbados and during this year she’d visited once before to deal with the issues her sister was experiencing with her lover and daughter, Neesa.
The instances of abuse, Redman explained, were reported to both police and the Human Services Ministry. However, after her return to Barbados she’d learnt that her sister was back with her lover and exposing Neesa and herself to more of the old abusive treatment from the man.
Like her father Kayoum, Redman also alleged that her niece was being forced to use various forms of drugs and was being abused by her mother’s lover. However, she declined to comment further reminding this newspaper that the matter was now in the police’s hands and she was doing all she could to see that justice is served.
Police in Parika
Neesa’s grandfather Kayoum also told this newspaper that the girl recalled waking up in the room of a hotel at Parika with the man next to her and police knocking on the door. Neesa, the man said, had told him that the police were at the time looking for her stepfather as they believed that he had a quantity of drugs in his possession at the time. She recalled the officers kicking down the door to the hotel room, searching the room for drugs but after coming up empty handed, left them alone.
He said it baffles the family that the police never took into account that the girl was still a minor at the time and according to him, when his granddaughter related the matter, she said that her mother asked her to keep her mouth quiet as reporting the matter to the police would have made things bad for her stepfather.
The young woman however reported the matter to the police and she also told the ranks of other occasions when she suspected that she was drugged by the man and abused. He said the family was shocked when the young woman related that the matter was dropped, and that her mother told her not to put her stepfather in trouble.
Commander of Police ‘D’ Division, Assistant Commiss-ioner Balram Persaud, has since told this newspaper that about weeks ago Neesa in company of her mother showed up at the Leonora Police Station and told police that the earlier allegations she’d made were false.
Locked in
The teen’s grandfather also recounted the girl informing relatives of a padlock being placed on her mother’s bedroom door by the controlling man, noting that at nights, the man would lock the door from the outside with the lock. She said too that the man would go over to her room and beg her to go for a walk, in the dead of night. He said the girl never stated if she ever went along with the man but he noted that neighbours recalled seeing the girl leaving the house during the wee hours of the night with the man.
He said the young woman confided in another relative that the man would lock himself in her room and physically abuse her repeatedly, as her mother slept. She believed at the time that she and her mother were both drugged by the man and she recalled occasions where the man would bring home food from popular fast food outlets in the city, soon after which she would become sleepy.
Kayoum said also that his daughter wanted to take the girl out of school, citing the cost to send her to school in the city as being too much after her father died.
He said the Anna Catherina Islamic Complex, which houses a private school, had volunteered to offer the teenager free tuition, uniform and travelling but his granddaughter declined as she saw the high school she was attending as her school of choice. At the moment the teen’s younger sibling attends school at the Anna Catherina complex.
He also recounted an encounter he had with the teen’s step father last Friday at a Duck Curry competition at Anna Catherina during which he noted the man appeared angry. He said he was discussing the sale of poultry with someone at the event when he observed the man moving in his direction. He said the man walked up to him “big out he chest like a powerful person” and mumbled a few words which he could not make out. He said it was at that point he was convinced that the man had done something to his daughter.
The man also stated that the man’s legally wedded wife, who was kidnapped several years ago while she was preparing for a pageant, appeared to have been monitoring activities inside the Gopaul’s home noting that the woman strangely befriended Neesa, while her husband was in a relationship with the teen’s mother.
He said the girl related that the man’s wife would advise her to be “careful” with her mother as she wanted to transfer the property and car left behind by her father (Moonsammy), into her (the mother’s) name. He said at the same time, the stepfather would inform the mother that the teen wanted to ‘expose’ them (her mother and step father) and it was such events, the girl’s stepfather noted, triggered the young lady to become even more confused following her father’s ‘sudden’ death.
On Saturday, after she went missing on September 24, the teen’s headless and deteriorating body was discovered in a suitcase at the closed resort, Emerald Tower located in Madewini, Linden/ Soesdyke Highway. The suitcase was anchored to the bottom of the creek by a heavy piece of metal.
