Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter wait­ing sev­en months for DNA con­fir­ma­tion that the de­cap­i­tat­ed body found in Siparia was that of Jamie Mo­hammed, a rel­a­tive is now urg­ing au­thor­i­ties to speed up the process in sim­i­lar cas­es.

Eve­lyn Cha­too, Mo­hammed’s sis­ter-in-law, is call­ing for lo­cal DNA test­ing to help avoid such lengthy de­lays.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Cha­too said the po­lice in­formed them on Sat­ur­day about the DNA re­sults, but they still have to wait un­til the au­top­sy is done to­day be­fore they can put her to rest.

Her com­mon-law hus­band last saw 44-year-old Jamie on Oc­to­ber 18, af­ter he dropped her off at a bar in Siparia to lime with friends. On No­vem­ber 11, 2024, he re­port­ed her miss­ing to the po­lice.

Days lat­er, on No­vem­ber 14 around 1.30 pm, a 20-year-old hunter dis­cov­ered a body in some bush­es about 15 feet off Mur­ray Trace, Siparia. He ini­tial­ly thought it was a man­nequin but as he got clos­er, he got a foul stench.

The skull was found next to the body, which was in a leop­ard-coloured top and red­dish short pants that were pulled down to the left knee. One side of a white and pink Un­der Ar­mour sneak­er was on her foot, while the oth­er was found near­by. Her body was found about half a mile away from the bar.

Based on her cloth­ing and sneak­ers, griev­ing rel­a­tives be­lieved it was Mo­hammed.

De­scrib­ing the past few months as “tor­ture” and “ter­ri­ble,” Cha­too yes­ter­day said she does not wish what they went through on any oth­er fam­i­ly.

“This has been a strain on us. I think it is hor­ri­ble what we went through, and a lot of peo­ple face the same prob­lem.”

Af­ter some time, she said peo­ple stopped call­ing or check­ing on the fam­i­ly, but she es­pe­cial­ly thanked WPC Hospedales for her sup­port.She said the au­thor­i­ties need to put mea­sures in place to ex­pe­dite DNA test­ing.

“When they send the DNA abroad for test­ing, the wait­ing time is too long. There needs to be some­thing faster than that. They should do some­thing to have DNA test­ing done lo­cal­ly. For us, it’s been sev­en months of pain.”

She said they were wait­ing for the au­top­sy be­fore fi­nal­is­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments.

Just last week, the par­ents of mur­dered school­girl Ma­li­ni Per­sad re­ceived DNA con­fir­ma­tion that skele­tal re­mains found un­der a man­go tree in Bar­rack­pore on April 17 were in­deed their daugh­ter’s. In 2023, the fam­i­ly of fish­er­man Rishi Khem­chan had to wait more than eight months for DNA re­sults.

Guardian Me­dia tried con­tact­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der on his cell­phone but calls and mes­sages went unan­swered.