The mother of Nursing Assistant Schenise Apple believes that the investigation surrounding her death was at a standstill for months and was only recently fast-tracked after a new detective took over the case.
“To me it was at standstill, like nothing didn’t do before. Everyone was saying things was being done but nothing was done,” Shonette Apple yesterday told Stabroek News.
Apple said she was aware that the file was initially sent for legal advice last year. The latest update, she said she received was about two weeks ago after she was approached by the police for a statement for the first time since Schenise death.
“The first time it (the file) went to the DPP that is what I know about, since last year and the file was sent back from the DPP to the police to do some follow up but to me they didn’t do anything,” Shonette said.
“When I gave the statement about two weeks ago, a week after I was told that the file gone back to the DPP,” she added.
According to Shonette, after a new detective took over the case, statements were taken again from several other individuals including Schenise’s boyfriend and colleagues.
“He (detective) had to take statements from everybody back again, the boyfriend, everybody and so on,” she said.
Sources recently told Stabroek News that the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is in possession of a file from the police into the death of Apple. According to the sources, the DPP’s Chambers had received a file from the police late last year.
This file had been subsequently returned to the police for further investigations to be done. Sources say the police file was returned to the DPP’s Chambers last Tuesday. The DPP will now provide advice on the way forward in the case.
Contacted by Stabroek News yesterday, Police Commander of Region 8 Ramesh Ashram, who is currently on leave distanced himself from the probe.
Ashram said that the investigation was completed before he took over the post in November, last year. “When I went up there that was complete. I didn’t go and meet that matter there,” he said.
Questioned about what can possibly cause the delay in the investigation, Ashram noted that sometimes, the investigation, depending on its nature, takes “some time”.
“Well, depends on the investigation, you know. Sometime the back and forth does take some time,” he said.
Apple’s family is adamant that she died by foul means and not by suicide which had been the original report.
In a news item in the July 19th edition of Sunday Stabroek, Apple’s mother noting that it had been more than a year since her daughter had been discovered dead in her apartment at the nurses’ quarters at Mahdia, in Region Eight, continued to press for an inquiry.
“I am calling for a full inquiry into the death of my child and I am calling on the relevant authorities to look into the matter because this is not fair. This is unfair,” Shonette told this newspaper.
On the evening of July 2nd, 2019, Schenise, 26, of Block 22, Linden, Region Ten, was found hanging in her room at the nurses’ quarters.
The then police commander of the division, Kevin Adonis, had told this newspaper that the woman’s lifeless body was spotted by an individual who passed by her room.
Her family is adamant that her death could not be suicide.
“I know my child. Suicide is not her thing. Number two, you could have seen an injection mark that somebody bore her in her hand. Another thing: nobody commit suicide and be like that and if you look at her body at that time you could have seen like she had a struggle with somebody”, Shonette stated.
