sto­ries by Derek Achong

The fu­ner­al of an 88-year-old woman from San Juan, which was stopped by a High Court Judge to al­low for an au­top­sy to de­ter­mine whether she had been al­leged­ly starved to death, can now pro­ceed.

Dur­ing a hear­ing yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad dis­charged the in­junc­tion he grant­ed last Thurs­day to Nef­fritte Bo­cas-Larkin against her sis­ter El­isha Bo­cas.

Pre­sent­ing brief sub­mis­sions, Bo­cas-Larkin’s lawyer Carl Mat­tis in­formed the court that the au­top­sy was con­duct­ed by pathol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor Hu­bert Dais­ley, last Fri­day, and al­leged­ly con­firmed his client’s sus­pi­cions.

In Dais­ley’s pre­lim­i­nary re­port, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, he claimed that he found that the sib­lings’ moth­er Toolin Bo­cas was “marked­ly ema­ci­at­ed”.

“There was a loss of all her body fat and most of her skele­tal mus­cles,” Dais­ley said, as he not­ed that the el­der­ly woman would have been bedrid­den at the time of her death.

“Her im­mo­bil­i­sa­tion would have set the stage for her pul­monary em­bolism and demise,” he said.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that he could not make any find­ings in re­la­tion to the re­port as he on­ly grant­ed the in­junc­tion based on lit­i­ga­tion be­tween the two sib­lings over ac­cess to their moth­er and the fam­i­ly’s home at El So­cor­ro Road in San Juan, which was ini­ti­at­ed be­fore her death.

In­stead, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered that Dais­ley’s fi­nal re­port be for­ward­ed to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion to be con­duct­ed.

At­tor­ney Varude Badri-Ma­haraj, who led the le­gal team for Bo­cas-Larkin’s sis­ter, wel­comed the move as he point­ed out that his client was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by po­lice based on a pre­vi­ous re­port from her sis­ter and was cleared of any wrong­do­ing.

“We have no dif­fi­cul­ty con­cern­ing that. Let it go for­ward,” Badri-Ma­haraj said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so took the de­ci­sion to strike out Bo­cas-Larkin’s sub­stan­tive case against her sis­ter as he ad­vised her lawyers that they had to file a sep­a­rate law­suit over how their moth­er’s es­tate in­clud­ing the prop­er­ty is to be di­vid­ed.

As part of his de­ci­sion in the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered Bo­cas-Larkin to pay a por­tion of her sis­ter’s le­gal costs.

In 2020, Bo­cas-Larkin, a reg­is­tered nurse who re­sides in the Unit­ed States, sued her sis­ter over al­leged­ly deny­ing her ac­cess to their moth­er Toolin, and their fam­i­ly home.

Bo­cas-Larkin claimed that be­fore their fa­ther Ah­mid Bo­cas passed away he ex­e­cut­ed a will in which he left the prop­er­ty to his wife and his four chil­dren.

She claimed that af­ter her fa­ther’s fu­ner­al, her sis­ter took cus­tody of their el­der­ly moth­er and the house.

In 2021, High Court Judge Joan Charles grant­ed an in­junc­tion grant­i­ng Bo­cas-Larkin ac­cess to her moth­er and the prop­er­ty on her pe­ri­od­ic trips to Trinidad.

In the court fil­ings, Bo­cas-Larkin claimed that she was forced to again seek ju­di­cial in­ter­ven­tion as her sis­ter al­leged­ly sought to take full con­trol of the prop­er­ty af­ter their moth­er passed away, ear­li­er this month.

De­scrib­ing the al­leged be­hav­iour of Bo­cas-Larkin’s sis­ter as un­con­scionable, her lawyers claimed that be­tween 2007 and 2012 their client spent US$10,000 on ren­o­vat­ing the house and im­prov­ing its mar­ket val­ue.

In grant­i­ng the in­junc­tion, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered Bo­cas-Larkin to pay for the au­top­sy and the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with de­lay­ing the fu­ner­al, which is now ex­pect­ed to take place to­day.

Bo­cas-Larkin was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by James Philbert, while Ronald Sam­my ap­peared along­side Badri-Ma­haraj for her sis­ter.