An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The par­ents of 18-year-old Han­nah Mathu­ra were de­tained sep­a­rate­ly by po­lice last night, af­ter an au­top­sy on the skele­tal re­mains found in the shal­low grave on their Val­sayn prop­er­ty on Tues­day, con­firmed the re­mains were not on­ly Han­nah’s but that she al­so died “an un­nat­ur­al death”.

Mathu­ra was al­so iden­ti­fied through the cloth­ing re­cov­ered in the foot-deep grave. How­ev­er, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers de­clined to say what the ex­act cause of her death was, as the case had turned in­to a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that her fa­ther, An­drew, was de­tained around 9 pm by of­fi­cers from the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion at an apart­ment in El Do­ra­do, Tu­na­puna, where he had gone in­to hid­ing since elud­ing cus­tody on Tues­day and ear­li­er yes­ter­day.

Al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, an­oth­er group of of­fi­cers de­tained the moth­er at the fam­i­ly’s Bu­tu Road, Val­sayn home.

Of­fi­cers had been search­ing for the fa­ther af­ter he elud­ed po­lice on Tues­day when they first raid­ed the fam­i­ly’s home.

They re­turned to the house yes­ter­day af­ter get­ting re­ports he may have re­turned there but that proved to be false.

Hours lat­er, they caught him hid­ing out in the Tu­na­puna com­mu­ni­ty.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, res­i­dents of Bu­tu Road ac­cused the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of fail­ing the vic­tims in the fam­i­ly, who were re­port­ed­ly locked away by a male rel­a­tive for the past sev­er­al years.

Re­spond­ing to re­ports of the dis­cov­ery of skele­tal re­mains in a shal­low grave in the home’s back­yard, one woman yes­ter­day lament­ed, “They could have pre­vent­ed many of the atroc­i­ties that took place in the house if they had on­ly lis­tened.”

An­oth­er woman, who has been liv­ing in the area for close to 30 years, claimed, “There have just al­ways been strange oc­cur­rences at that house ever since.”

One of the women al­so al­leged that an in­ci­dent in 2015, in which it was re­port­ed an in­trud­er died af­ter crash­ing through a glass door, was not an ac­ci­dent.

Fol­low­ing a re­port by a 26-year-old man of the ac­tiv­i­ties at the house, of­fi­cers from the TTPS went to the sprawl­ing res­i­dence on Tues­day and dis­cov­ered the skele­tal re­mains in the back­yard.

The po­lice were told that Mathu­ra, who was dis­abled, was buried in 2017 in the foot-deep hole.

This was seem­ing­ly con­firmed by a res­i­dent liv­ing close by, who said, “We knew some­thing had hap­pened be­cause we smelt it for days.”

Stand­ing on the bal­cony which sep­a­rates the east and west wings of the res­i­dence yes­ter­day as he spoke to Guardian Me­dia, prop­er­ty own­er Ald­wyn Luke Girod, 99, said he was aware a body had been found on the premis­es on Tues­day. How­ev­er, the frail man said he was stuck up­stairs as he was un­able to move around a lot.

Point­ing to the west wing, which he said was oc­cu­pied by one of his sons and grand­son, Girod, the for­mer own­er of the Am­bas­sador Ho­tel in Long Cir­cu­lar, said the east wing was oc­cu­pied by his daugh­ter and her hus­band, along with their eight chil­dren.

Pressed to say what had tran­spired on Tues­day and if he was aware of what the po­lice had found, he told Guardian Me­dia, “I don’t know my­self be­cause I can’t re­al­ly go down and look.”

Con­front­ed by one of his grand­daugh­ters for speak­ing to the me­dia about the un­fold­ing sit­u­a­tion, Girod was urged to stop invit­ing re­porters on­to the premis­es.

A young man, be­lieved to be one of the chil­dren from the house, sought to clear up ini­tial mis­in­for­ma­tion, say­ing, “There were on­ly three chil­dren who were there at the time (of the po­lice raid on Tues­day).”

He said there had been eight chil­dren in to­tal in the house­hold, in­clud­ing the de­ceased liv­ing at the lo­ca­tion. How­ev­er, ref­er­enc­ing in­for­ma­tion put in­to the pub­lic do­main, he said, “No one was locked up.”

He claimed the el­der chil­dren were all schol­ar­ship win­ners and were con­tin­u­ing to work at the uni­ver­si­ty to im­prove their aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

A quick pe­rusal of the wing still oc­cu­pied by Girod’s daugh­ter re­vealed old fur­ni­ture stacked on the bal­cony along with elec­tri­cal wires and oth­er items.

The glass doors to the front, which were bro­ken in some places, ap­peared to be held up by tape, while mis­matched cur­tains hung hap­haz­ard­ly. They al­so ap­peared to be fas­tened with tape, while the win­dows at the back of the house re­mained bare.

Guardian Me­dia was told that it had been at least five years since the elec­tric­i­ty to the east wing had been cut as the bills had not been paid.

A fe­male res­i­dent from close by said, “They kept to them­selves. They did not mix with the oth­er res­i­dents and the chil­dren were not al­lowed to so­cialise.”

Pressed to say more, she al­so con­firmed they of­ten heard scream­ing and shout­ing com­ing from the man­sion.

Asked about the de­ceased, she said while she knew of some of the chil­dren, she was not aware of just how many chil­dren lived there as they had been kept “un­der lock and key”.