Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A de­ci­sion on what charges, if any, are to be laid in re­la­tion to the skele­tal re­mains found at a Val­sayn home in March, is ex­pect­ed to be made by the end of the month.

Act­ing Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Joan Hon­ore-Paul told Guardian Me­dia that po­lice were ad­vised through­out the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, af­ter the re­mains of Han­nah Mathu­ra were found at her Bu­tu Road, Val­sayn home on March 12.

Mathu­ra’s bones were ex­ca­vat­ed from her back­yard af­ter a fam­i­ly mem­ber in­formed the po­lice about the re­mains. The fam­i­ly mem­ber al­leged that Han­nah died and was buried in the back­yard in June 2017. At the time of her death, Han­nah was 18.

Her par­ents were ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter her re­mains were found but lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­quiries. An au­top­sy con­duct­ed two days af­ter the dis­cov­ery re­vealed the teen may have been shot in the head.

DNA tests per­formed on the bone mar­row and bi­o­log­i­cal tis­sue-like car­ti­lage from de­com­posed skele­tal re­mains were cross-ref­er­enced with Han­nah’s sib­lings to con­firm that they were re­lat­ed.

Last week, po­lice sources said the mat­ter was near­ing an un­cer­tain end, how­ev­er, as the case was on the verge of be­com­ing statute-barred when it comes to spe­cif­ic charges.

How­ev­er, Hon­ore-Paul dis­missed this, say­ing that the is­sue of the case be­ing closed with­out charges does not arise.

When asked for an up­date on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pos­si­ble charges, the act­ing DPP said: “A de­ci­sion with re­spect to this mat­ter will be made by the end of Sep­tem­ber.”

In April, Han­nah’s sib­lings were hop­ing to re­ceive her re­mains for a prop­er send-off. But po­lice said the re­mains are be­ing kept at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre un­til the mat­ter is closed.

Fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery, Han­nah’s sib­lings and par­ents moved out of their home and re­turned months lat­er.