The fam­i­ly of Han­nah Mathu­ra said yes­ter­day that they learnt of the DNA con­fir­ma­tion of her re­mains from the me­dia yes­ter­day.

When con­tact­ed, one of her male rel­a­tives in­di­cat­ed that was the first time he had heard of the DNA con­fir­ma­tion, adding he was not in a po­si­tion to com­ment at the time.

“We have in­struct­ed our lawyers to ob­tain more in­for­ma­tion from the po­lice,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day re­port­ed that the DNA tests con­duct­ed on the skele­tal re­mains found buried in the back­yard of the fam­i­ly’s Val­sayn home one month ago, he con­firmed it was in­deed Han­nah.

The DNA re­sults were re­ceived by po­lice last week and they sought ad­vice from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard on the mat­ter.

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said con­fir­ma­tion of the re­mains al­lowed po­lice to dis­miss the sug­ges­tion that it was a male body.

The DNA tests were done on the bone mar­row and bi­o­log­i­cal tis­sue-like car­ti­lage re­main­ing from de­com­posed skele­tal re­mains and cross-ref­er­enced with that of her sib­lings.

Af­ter they were un­cov­ered, the re­mains were tak­en to the Port-of- Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for X-ray analy­sis to de­ter­mine the den­si­ty and struc­ture of the bones.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion giv­en to the po­lice by a fam­i­ly mem­ber, Han­nah died and was buried in the back­yard in June 2017.

Mathu­ra’s par­ents were ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter her re­mains were found but lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries.

Her sib­lings have since sought le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and have co­op­er­at­ed with po­lice in the en­quiry.

Mean­while, po­lice yes­ter­day said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was now a mat­ter of “dot­ting their I’s and cross­ing their T’s.”

Po­lice sources said the skull, which had two holes, prompt­ing the pathol­o­gist to sug­gest then that she was shot twice in the head, is now un­der­go­ing fur­ther test­ing to con­clu­sive­ly show they were, in fact, bul­let wounds, since there were no bul­let frag­ments or dam­aged tis­sue to cor­rob­o­rate the au­top­sy.

Po­lice al­so said at this stage of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they could not say whether the par­ents would be re-ar­rest­ed or in­ter­viewed again.

Han­nah’s re­mains were found in the back­yard of her Bu­tu Road, Val­sayn home on March 12.

Two days lat­er, an au­top­sy re­vealed she may have been shot in the head. Han­nah’s re­mains were found af­ter a male rel­a­tive in­formed po­lice that she was buried there about sev­en years ago. At the time she was last seen, Han­nah was 18.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one of the re­main­ing sib­lings’ at­tor­neys, San­jiv Bood­hu, con­firmed they had not been in­formed of the DNA re­sult yet. How­ev­er, he said his clients were in­ter­viewed on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions and will avail them­selves should the po­lice re­quire it.

“We are of the view that we have done all that we can up un­til this point to as­sist with this in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I sup­pose the po­lice might opt to reach out to us at some point of­fi­cial­ly as a re­sult of the DNA test. If there is a need for the chil­dren to co­op­er­ate any fur­ther, we are will­ing and ready to do so.”

Bood­hu said the le­gal team was yet to meet with the sib­lings to dis­cuss the way for­ward, adding they ex­pect to do so lat­er this week.

Asked about plans to have a prop­er bur­ial for Han­nah, Bood­hu said, “Be­cause we have not con­fer­enced with them as yet, we can’t say what their in­ten­tions will be.

“We ex­pect that all those things will be dis­cussed at our meet­ing.”