An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Han­nah Mathu­ra was shot in the head and then buried in a shal­low grave at the fam­i­ly’s home in Val­sayn.

The ex­act cause of death was con­firmed yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of an au­top­sy late Wednes­day.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia the find­ings in­di­cat­ed that Han­nah, who was re­port­ed­ly 18 at the time, died as a re­sult of, “gun­shot in­juries to the head”.

The of­fi­cer said there were sev­er­al oth­er in­juries on Han­nah’s re­mains but of­fi­cials were un­able to dis­cern ex­act­ly what they were and how they were caused be­cause of the amount of time elapsed be­tween her dis­ap­pear­ance and them find­ing the re­mains.

As the in­ves­ti­ga­tion deep­ened yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers are now look­ing to de­ter­mine whose gun was used, where it is now and just who would have shot Mathu­ra, as her fa­ther An­drew, 66, and moth­er, 62, who re­mained in cus­tody yes­ter­day, were not hold­ers of a Firearm Users Li­cence (FUL).

The moth­er and fa­ther were ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day night, af­ter Han­nah’s skele­tal re­mains were found in a shal­low grave at the fam­i­ly home in Val­sayn on Tues­day. At the time they were held, of­fi­cers said Han­nah’s death was ruled un­nat­ur­al and her par­ents were be­ing ques­tioned to shed light on what would have led to her death.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the cou­ple could be fac­ing mul­ti­ple charges as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues, which may in­clude the un­law­ful dis­pos­al of a body and fail­ing to re­port a death.

And while there had been al­le­ga­tions of pos­si­ble child abuse, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia, “Chil­dren abuse pos­si­ble but it may take some time to doc­u­ment the de­tails of the abuse ex­pe­ri­enced by each sib­ling.”

The chil­dren found at the house at Bu­tu Road, South Val­sayn, dur­ing a po­lice raid were ques­tioned by po­lice be­tween Tues­day and yes­ter­day.

Asked where the sib­lings, whose ages ranged from 17 to 24, were af­ter be­ing al­lowed to leave the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day, a se­nior of­fi­cer as­sured, “The sib­lings are at a safe lo­ca­tion.”

Mathu­ra’s re­mains were found in a foot-deep grave in the back­yard of the res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty, af­ter a close male rel­a­tive in­formed the po­lice.

She was said to be 18 years old when she died in 2017 and was lat­er buried by a rel­a­tive who failed to in­form the au­thor­i­ties.
Hours af­ter po­lice con­firmed Mathu­ra’s death was “un­nat­ur­al” on Wednes­day night, her par­ents were ar­rest­ed at sep­a­rate lo­ca­tions, as the case turned in­to a homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

An­oth­er se­nior of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia that in­ves­ti­ga­tors were hop­ing to “ap­proach the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in the soon­est pos­si­ble time”.