Kevon Felmine

An au­top­sy per­formed on the mu­ti­lat­ed body of Denise Rack­al at the Foren­sic Sci­ences Com­plex, yes­ter­day, re­vealed that she died from se­vere haem­or­rhag­ing caused by dog bites to her neck and head.

Her hus­band Li­onel Rack­al, in con­firm­ing the find­ings, said ten­ta­tive arrange­ments had been made to cre­mate his wife next Tues­day. Rack­al, a se­cu­ri­ty guard em­ployed with Per­son­al Safe­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty Train­ing Ltd, was walk­ing to her job site at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion's (HDC) con­struc­tion site in Ed­in­burgh 500 South, when she was mauled to death by four pit bulls. The dogs be­long to po­lice of­fi­cer Daryl La Pierre, who is at­tached to the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force. It is un­der­stood that the killer dogs have been re­moved from their home by Trinidad and To­ba­go So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion and Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals.

Li­onel said he would pur­sue le­gal ac­tion as soon as his wife was cre­mat­ed. "I want to get jus­tice, I want those dogs to be put to death and I need some kind of com­pen­sa­tion for the loss and my wife," he said. Li­onel said the fu­ner­al cost had added to his woes. "I went to get the cost of a cof­fin, they told me $12,000, plus I have to or­gan­ise trans­porta­tion and oth­er stuff...I am try­ing to see what I can do," he said. "The com­pa­ny she worked with has of­fered as­sis­tance and coun­selling for the fam­i­ly." A meet­ing be­tween Li­onel and se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials was sched­ule for yes­ter­day morn­ing, but Li­onel said no one showed up. "I think the Gov­ern­ment should hur­ry and pass the leg­is­la­tion per­tain­ing to these vi­cious an­i­mal be­cause it is hap­pen­ing too reg­u­lar," Li­onel said. A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said the Gov­ern­ment must work over­time to pass the Dan­ger­ous Dog leg­is­la­tion, as well as leg­is­la­tion to give of­fi­cers the pow­er of ar­rest in these cir­cum­stances.