Jensen La Vende

Foren­sic re­ports have con­firmed that mur­dered Japan­ese pan­nist Asa­mi Na­gakiya was not sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed be­fore she was stran­gled in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah last month.

Po­lice sources work­ing on the case told the T&T Guardian that sam­ples sent for fur­ther test­ing abroad were re­turned last week and de­bunked sus­pi­cion that the 30-year-old had been raped and mur­dered.

The sam­ples sent for test­ing al­so in­clud­ed oral swabs, which po­lice said re­vealed some "very use­ful in­for­ma­tion" as they were await­ing analy­sis of DNA sam­ples tak­en from sus­pects for com­par­i­son.

Na­gakiya's body, still dressed in her Lega­cy Car­ni­val cos­tume, was found around 9.30 am on Ash Wednes­day (Feb­ru­ary 10) un­der a tree at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah by a home­less man. Na­gakiya, a trained mu­si­cian by pro­fes­sion and a tenor play­er with PCS Sil­ver Stars, ar­rived in Trinidad on Jan­u­ary 8 to par­tic­i­pate in Car­ni­val.

Homi­cide of­fi­cers de­tained one man for ques­tion­ing for three days be­fore he was re­leased while oth­ers gave state­ments to the po­lice.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.