The parents and sister of Rainella Benfield, the teenage girl who was found dead in the Triumph, East Coast Demerara cemetery last December, were yesterday released from police custody after being questioned over the weekend about the case.
Divisional Commander Edmond Cooper yesterday told Stabroek News that the trio was released on their own recognisance. “They were released because we weren’t able to get any new information to implicate anybody”, Cooper said.
Benfield’s parents and sister were taken into custody on Saturday. Cooper had previously said that they were arrested “based on information received by senior police officials”.
The lifeless body of Rainella, 17, of Lot 99 Canterbury Walk, Beterverwagting (BV), East Coast Demerara, was discovered in the cemetery at Triumph on December 11th, 2017.
At the time, her body was face up between two tombs in the cemetery, which is located on the eastern side of the Beterverwagting Police Station. Her hands were on her stomach and her pants were pulled below her hips. Her face appeared to have been smashed in.
An autopsy revealed that Rainella, who was a telephone operator at Qualfon’s Goedverwagting call centre, died as a result of crushing injuries to her face, which were inflicted by a blunt object. The report, also indicated that she was alive when the injuries were inflicted.
The dead teen’s father, Rainsford Benfield had previously told Stabroek News that he is not satisfied with the pace of the investigation, which he had hoped would have been able to ensure justice for his daughter.
Rainsford had also related that he visited Crime Chief Paul Williams during last month to enquire about the investigation into the death of his daughter and he was told that the investigation is ongoing.
“They seh they getting difficulty with information. Nobody ain’t coming forward,” he had said.
Rainsford had also expressed his belief that his daughter was killed due to some issue in a Facebook group of which she was a member. This information, he said, was passed on to the police but they have since made no headway either. “It appears that the gang that we suspect; the LCC [Facebook] group that she was in, you aint getting no information from them,” he said.
“….The way how she was murdered, the manner in which she was killed, something was definitely wrong,” Rainsford added, while noting that the fact that the perpetrator/s went to the extent of destroying his daughter’s face means that the motive was personal.
