The identities of the Guyanese mother and her two infant children, who were found dead in a car in front of a US middle school on Monday, have been released by Maryland police following contact with relatives in Guyana.
The woman was identified as 32-year-old Allison Keyonda Pluck, formerly of Kitty, while her two daughters were identified as 18-month-old Shania Unique Gill and six-month-old Shameka Allison Gill. According to a WHAG News report, Pluck was an illegal immigrant but had a passport to enter the US.
When contacted yesterday, a relative of Pluck refused to speak with Stabroek News. “I’s she aunt and I seh she ain’t dead hay,” the woman angrily said. “We ain’t got nothing to say.”
A source, who asked to remain anonymous, shared that Pluck had left for the US sometime in 2006 to be with her US-based husband.
The pair split soon afterwards and Pluck later met the father of her children. She was an employee of a Walmart in Frederick, Maryland until she quit her job earlier this year.
For days, police from the Hagerstown Police Department delayed the release of the names of the victims due to difficulties in locating the dead woman’s family. One of Pluck’s sister arrived in the United States from Guyana sometime on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Hagerstown police ruled out the possibility that the trio had been killed by someone else.
At this time, the department are deeming the deaths as “suspicious” and are currently working with three different possibilities, the WHAG News report said. “There was nothing found in the vehicle that would indicate cause of death,” said Captain Paul Kifer of the Hagerstown police. “There were no pill bottles, no drugs found in her car; the only thing found in the car was a baby bottle which we believe was for the infant. There was no other food or anything else in that vehicle.”
Kifer further said, “We may never know as to why she was in that parking lot. We may never know what drove her there.” He continued, “Right now what we’re looking for what caused her death and the two children’s deaths. That will answer some questions as to what happened. Why it happened may never be answered.”
Previous reports had indicated that the police were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide. Though not definite, it still remains a strong possibility.
“We’re looking at an accidental death of all three,” said Kifer. “We’re looking at a mother who committed suicide and the accidental death of her children, or a mother who caused the death of her kids and then committed suicide. Those are the three options we’re looking at. That’s how the investigation is going and right now we’re treating the latter as what we’re investigating as we’re treating all the evidence that way.”
Through the use of surveillance tapes, Hagerstown police were able to develop a timeline of Pluck’s actions prior to the Monday afternoon discovery of the bodies. The woman and her children were seen at a Walmart branch early Monday morning before proceeding to the visitors’ parking area of the middle school where they were subsequently found.
The car soon moved to the employees’ parking area. Though there were no surveillance cameras in this area, investigators found tire tracks in the grassy area that showed how the car got there, a Herald Mail article summed up.
Due to the need for toxicology analysis, the determination on just what killed the trio might take up to several weeks.
Meanwhile, the Department of Social Services has been working closely with the deceased’s family and the Guyana Embassy to have Pluck’s body returned to Guyana.
The father of the two children, who lives in Hagerstown but did not share a marital relationship with Pluck, will bury the girls in the US, police told WHAG News.
The bodies were reportedly spotted in a car by an employee of the school late Monday afternoon.
The car’s ignition was off and the windows were up.
Neither the woman nor her children have known connections to the school which is around three miles from their rented home in the East End.
