Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter two years of wait­ing for an­swers from the po­lice, DNA re­sults have con­firmed that a de­com­pos­ing body found on a beach was miss­ing Point Fortin moth­er, Aver­zon Miller.

Of­fi­cers from the South West­ern Di­vi­sion and Vic­tim Sup­port Ser­vices de­liv­ered the re­sults to Miller’s el­dest son, Aaron Aqui, and oth­er rel­a­tives yes­ter­day at their Point Fortin home. The con­fir­ma­tion came just two days af­ter Miller’s sis­ter, Keal­izan­da Grant, made a pub­lic ap­peal to the au­thor­i­ties to dis­close the DNA re­sults.

Miller went miss­ing on Ju­ly 15, and more than a week lat­er, a de­com­posed body was dis­cov­ered at Chatham Beach. DNA sam­ples were tak­en from Miller’s fa­ther and Aqui in Sep­tem­ber that year.

While up­set about the lengthy de­lay, Grant said she was re­lieved to get the re­sults and it is un­like­ly they would pur­sue le­gal ac­tion.

“Our con­cern was to get her body so she could be rest­ed in the prop­er man­ner. Even though it took so long, it... it was re­al­ly ag­o­nis­ing with pain and cry­ing, pray­ing and fast­ing, we have faith in God. So, what­ev­er will be, will al­ways be. Even though the jus­tice sys­tem al­ways fails us, it’s okay. We thank God for the re­sults,” she said.

Miller’s aunt, Grace Miller, re­called that on the day Miller dis­ap­peared, she had ex­pressed fear for her life. “She told me some­one want­ed to kill her ... She had been scared out of her wits,” she said. How­ev­er, Miller of­fered no fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion.

Grace, who had known Miller since she was an in­fant and con­sid­ered her like a daugh­ter, com­plained,”It has been hard wait­ing all this time to get the re­sults. Why did it take so long? Is it be­cause she is no­body? She didn’t have mon­ey or hi­er­ar­chy? Why was it swept un­der the car­pet?”

Grace al­so re­vealed that Miller had won “big” in Play Whe on the day she went miss­ing. Af­ter Miller’s dis­ap­pear­ance, she dreamt of a body be­ing found on a beach.

“I felt re­lief in a way, but I feel the loss. It is a feel­ing of sad­ness that we will no longer see her, and she has left six chil­dren be­hind.”

Aqui said the of­fi­cers who came to his home gave no ex­pla­na­tion for the de­lay in the DNA re­sults, but he hoped to get an­swers from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre (FSC). He re­called that ear­li­er this year, he went to the po­lice sta­tion for an up­date on his moth­er’s case, but the of­fi­cer re­quest­ed the case num­ber.

“I asked the of­fi­cers if they could use the name as a ref­er­ence, but they said they could not do it at the time,” he said.

Call­ing the two-year wait un­ac­cept­able, Aqui said, “It was dif­fi­cult not know­ing be­cause we al­ways had hope she would come back home. I feel more sad than hap­py be­cause it would have been bet­ter for a bet­ter out­come. Hop­ing that she was some­where else rather than dead. Hop­ing she would come back to us.”

Po­lice re­sponse

South West­ern Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Thomp­son con­firmed the re­sults came from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre but could not pro­vide a rea­son for the long de­lay. He said po­lice would con­tin­ue to sup­port the fam­i­ly as they go through the process of claim­ing Miller’s body, and that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her death was on­go­ing. Thomp­son al­so said he was un­aware if an au­top­sy had been done.