Relatives of a 16-year-old girl who was found hanging from a tree at Kumu Village, Rupununi last month, say that they are convinced it was staged to cover the real cause of death and are calling on the police to conduct a thorough investigation.
They said that after constant visits to the police, a post-mortem examination was reluctantly done on the remains of Alana Peters on Tuesday before she was buried at St Ignatius Village. However, they are still not satisfied as, according to them, police are still insisting that the girl committed suicide and that there was no evidence of foul play.
A police official indicated to this newspaper that it was following inquiries from the girl’s relatives that a PME was done at the Lethem morgue by government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh.
The official said the doctor gave the cause of death as asphyxiation due to hanging. The official indicated to this newspaper that following the PME the relatives alleged that the girl was drugged and as such samples of several organs were collected.
An upset Mary-Ann told this newspaper on Tuesday that there were too many unanswered questions for them to just accept that her sister killed herself.
A source close to the family said that after hearing their concerns he decided to do some investigations on his own. He said that based on what he had gathered Peters and a 13-year-old relative had left St Ignatius on February 26 on a seven-mile bicycle ride to Kumu Village. Along the way, a man on a motorcycle stopped them and offered to take them there. The girls decided to return to St Ignatius and leave their cycles.
The source told Stabroek News that the man later took the girls to Kumu Falls where there is a recreation park. According to the 13-year-old girl, the source said, while at the falls, they drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes and at some point Peters got intoxicated. Around 4:30 pm that day, the 13-year-old indicated, they went to the bottom of the falls where they met up with the man’s brother and a policeman (name provided).
The source said that based on the teen’s story, Peters stumbled several times, a clear indication of her intoxicated state.
While heading back to St Ignatius with the girls, the man stopped on the way claiming that he had run out of gas. He stopped a passerby whom he asked to drop the 13-year-old back to the village while Peters remained with him.
According to the source, the man told the 13-year-old that if anyone asked for Peters, she should tell them that the girl was coming behind. This is the story relatives at St Ignatius were told and they became worried after Peters did not return that night.
From all indications, the man took Peters to an abandoned house in St Ignatius where they spent the night. Early the following morning he and Peters returned to Kumu village where they had breakfast with some of the man’s relatives.
The source told this newspaper that it was at this point that things started to get strange as no one can clearly say when and how the hanging took place. The source said the man’s relatives – a husband and wife – gave police a “mix up” story that makes little sense. He said the wife told the investigators that she left home early that morning with her children and when she left, the man, the teen and her husband were in the house.
The husband, according to the source, told the police that the girl wanted to sleep and he and the man went to fetch Ite leaves to assist a resident to construct a house. The husband, however, said the man sat in a shop for several hours while he alone fetched the building material.
Some time after noon, they decided to go back to the house and the girl was nowhere to be found. According to the source, during the search, the man walked directly in the line of sight of where Peters was found hanging but claimed he did not see her until he passed that area and was heading back to the house.
The source said the wife is now claiming that the girl died around 9:15 am.
The man at the centre of the matter it is being alleged is also saying some suspicious things that cannot be ignored.
At some point, the site was visited and there were marking on the tree where Peters was found which indicated that something very heavy climbed the tree, the source said.
Staged
Mary-Ann, in a telephone interview, expressed the view that her sister overdosed on alcohol and drugs and the man, not wanting to get into trouble, staged the hanging. She said nothing about the case made sense to her, but expressed the fear that nothing much will be done because of the man’s “connections”.
The woman said that following the PME, her relatives attempted to talk to the doctor, but all he would say was that Peters died from hanging and that there was no alcohol in her system. She said that they attempted to get more information but the doctor kept walking away from them. She said the doctor indicated that there was a rope mark around Peters’ neck and that indicated that she did hang herself.
The relatives, according to Mary-Ann, were later told by the doctor to ask the police whatever questions they needed to be answered. “We try doing that but the police ain’t want to do nothing about it”, she said, her voice laced with frustration.
The woman told this newspaper that the doctor took a samples of Peters’ liver, kidneys and neck, where the rope was, and explained that the samples will be sent to the city to be analyzed by a specialist.
She said that following her sister’s death, she learned that man, who is in his 20s, and his wife had earlier separated. She said she knew the man’s wife as they had worked together, but her sister did not know the man prior to February 26.
Relatives were to return to the police yesterday to give a statement but according to Mary-Ann they were advised not to as they would be repeating what they had already told the police.
The woman insists that she will not let the incident go until she gets answers.
