Teenag­er Ne­tanya Mo­ham­dal­ly, who spent sev­er­al years in a home be­cause of her un­con­trol­lable ways, had start­ed pro­gress­ing nice­ly, earned sev­er­al ed­u­ca­tion­al cer­tifi­cates and was just start­ing to get her life back on track when her life was snuffed out.

But the chance for the 17-year-old to full­fil her promise was sud­den­ly tak­en away from her by some­one po­lice be­lieve may have been very close to her. Of­fi­cers said yes­ter­day that one of Mo­ham­dal­ly’s male friends holds the key to what hap­pened to her, as she was last seen at his Chase Vil­lage, Ch­agua­nas home at about 8 pm on March 17.

Mo­ham­dal­ly’s de­com­pos­ing body was found in a ravine at Ex­change Lots, Cou­va, by a farmer on Sat­ur­day. Both her hands and feet were tied to­geth­er with rope and her head was al­so bashed in. An au­top­sy re­vealed she died of chop wounds to the neck.

Mo­ham­dal­ly was wear­ing a pair of short black tights, black vest and tan-coloured slip­pers when she was found. There was the tat­too of a rose on the right side of her ab­domen, which was how her moth­er pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied her at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James on Mon­day.

Yes­ter­day, a close fam­i­ly friend, an el­der­ly woman who did not want to give her name, said Mo­ham­dal­ly’s death had “rocked” the area where she lived with her moth­er in a rent­ed apart­ment at the cor­ner of Gas­ton and Xavier Street Ex­ten­sion in Ch­agua­nas.

The woman said she was told by Mo­ham­dal­ly’s moth­er that she had begged her teen daugh­ter not to go any­where that day.

“If chil­dren would lis­ten to their par­ents noth­ing would hap­pen to them. The moth­er told us she saw when the daugh­ter got dressed and put a bag on her shoul­der and was about to leave. That moth­er begged her not to go any­where but she still left. She gone and look at…she nev­er came back home alive,” the el­der­ly woman said.

“The po­lice have to find them who did that to her...they tie up that pret­ty girl and stab her up all in the neck and face. Smashed her head too. What could she have pos­si­bly done to de­serve such a death like that?” the woman added.

The woman said the teen’s moth­er did do­mes­tic work for a liv­ing.

“That moth­er worked very hard and very hon­est to pay her rent…she had a hard life rais­ing her daugh­ter and had to put her in this home be­cause she was un­con­trol­lable but the girl end up do­ing good and got a whole set of cer­tifi­cates and oth­er pa­pers, prov­ing that her be­hav­iour had got­ten bet­ter.

That moth­er used to go in the court reg­u­lar to sign for her. That moth­er tried her best and got her the job at Pen­ny­wise in De­cem­ber.”

The el­der­ly woman said Mo­ham­dal­ly was well loved at her work­place by all her co-work­ers and was “a favourite among the girls. She was throw­ing a lit­tle small sou-sou hand too as a sav­ings. She was do­ing good and mak­ing every­one proud.”

Asked if she knew whether or not Mo­ham­dal­ly was ever threat­ened by any­one, the el­der­ly woman replied: “I don’t know but I was to ask the moth­er to find out if she had got­ten her sou-sou hand, but we be­lieve that she was killed in a house or some­where else and her body dumped there. If you see the area where she body was found in a pond you wouldn’t even want to go there, even if it’s day­light. Thank God for the man who was go­ing in his gar­den that he spot the body, oth­er­wise we would have not known where to find her.”