Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

“They are mon­sters,” Can­dice Ri­ley said as she wept open­ly on the phone for her 18-year-old daugh­ter Ashan­ti Ri­ley.

Some­time af­ter the teenag­er went miss­ing af­ter leav­ing her Lloyd Street, San Juan home, her killers dumped her body in a San­ta Cruz riv­er af­ter rap­ing her re­peat­ed­ly. She was fi­nal­ly found by po­lice yes­ter­day, leav­ing her moth­er and oth­er rel­a­tives heart­bro­ken.

“It’s hard to lose your child be­cause you did not bring them here to bury them like that. Now I know how oth­er moth­ers feel when they lose their child to these mon­sters,” Ri­ley said, her voice trail­ing off in­to deep sobs as she broke down.

Ashan­ti’s body was found ear­ly yes­ter­day by a team of po­lice of­fi­cers, af­ter the 32-year-old PH dri­ver who had picked her up last Sun­day was lat­er de­tained. He fi­nal­ly broke un­der po­lice ques­tion­ing - telling them the lo­ca­tion of her body and al­so fin­ger­ing two oth­er men re­spon­si­ble for her killing. One of those sus­pects was lat­er de­tained by Homi­cide of­fi­cers at Laven­tille Road, San Juan, while they con­tin­ue the hunt for a third sus­pect.

Still in dis­be­lief over her daugh­ter’s loss, Can­dice said she im­me­di­ate­ly knew some­thing was wrong mere hours af­ter Ashan­ti did not turn up at her grand­moth­er’s home in Co­corite.

“We on­ly moved here about two months ago, so she took the taxi go­ing high­er up the road, which was then to go back down in­to the Croisee in San Juan. There, she was sup­posed to meet her boyfriend and they would trav­el to Port-of-Spain to meet her cousins and then they would trav­el to her grand­moth­er’s place in Co­corite,” ex­plained the grief-strick­en moth­er.

But alarm bells went off when Ashan­ti nev­er met up with her boyfriend and the con­cerned moth­er de­cid­ed to make a miss­ing per­son’s re­port to the San Juan Po­lice Sta­tion im­me­di­ate­ly.

“I went to the po­lice sta­tion and was treat­ed good - I re­mem­ber a Sargeant Thomas be­ing nice to me. But there were oth­er of­fi­cers who asked some ques­tions which I know they have to ask. But it’s the way they asked the ques­tions, I be­lieve that took me aback,” she re­called.

“They were ask­ing me in a man­ner as if my child was some kind of “bad thing” and whether I would put my head on a block for her. I said I can put my head on a block for her be­cause Ashan­ti is not that kind of child at all.

“That is why I did not wait till late Sun­day night or on Mon­day morn­ing to go and make the re­port be­cause I know it’s not typ­i­cal of her to just go miss­ing and not tell me where she is go­ing.”

Re­count­ing the mo­ments last Sun­day when she saw her daugh­ter alive for the last time, she said, “Ashan­ti and I were alone home be­cause the oth­er two chil­dren went by rel­a­tives. I went to Tu­na­puna ear­ly and came back and we both cook. Then she told me ma, I go­ing by granny for her birth­day. Ashan­ti loved to dress up and wear nice clothes. She was the life of the par­ty you know. Nev­er gave me any trou­ble.”

Can­dice said it was on­ly af­ter the dis­ap­pear­ance of her daugh­ter that peo­ple in the area told her the PH dri­ver in ques­tion had al­leged­ly in­ter­fered with young women from around the area in the past.

“I on­ly moved in­to Lloyd Street, Sun­shine Av­enue, about two months ago, so I don’t re­al­ly know many peo­ple around here. It was on­ly af­ter I heard that the taxi dri­ver who picked up Ashan­ti had a ‘rep­u­ta­tion’.”

Ashanti Riley Image courtesy TTPS

In hind­sight, she said had she known that be­fore her daugh­ter would have nev­er got­ten in­to that ve­hi­cle last Sun­day.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are work­ing on the the­o­ry that Ashan­ti’s killers took her to a mo­tel in East Trinidad where she was ap­par­ent­ly raped and lat­er stran­gled. How­ev­er, an au­top­sy will de­ter­mine her ex­act cause of death.

Dex­ter Tim­o­thy, the hus­band of Lisa Ri­ley, Ashan­ti’s aunt, was giv­en the news about the dis­cov­ery of her body by his col­leagues at work.

He said he rushed to the scene hop­ing it was not her but the sober­ing re­al­i­ty set in when he got there.

“The fam­i­ly is not cop­ing too well,” he told Guardian Me­dia at the scene.

“This is a young la­dy that has been do­ing her work.”

On so­cial me­dia, the out­rage was ev­i­dent fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of Ashan­ti’s body, with many ex­press­ing in­creas­ing con­cern for the safe­ty of women and girls in this coun­try.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter and the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for St Ann’s East Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly was one of them.

“I feel so sick,” she said.

“This one is so close to home. Lit­er­al­ly. This could have been me. This could have been my sis­ter, my daugh­ter. Oh, God!”

Near­by res­i­dents al­so ex­pressed shock and dis­may that such a grue­some act had tak­en place in this qui­et com­mu­ni­ty.

One woman said she fre­quent­ly goes run­ning along the trail. She is the moth­er of sev­en, five of whom are girls, and she con­tin­ues to talk to them about their safe­ty, she said. The woman, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said the case was a grim re­minder of the fact that women are not safe. She said she recog­nised Ashan­ti from see­ing her in San Juan and it was a loss that hit home. She said it al­so was shock­ing the dis­tance her at­tack­ers trav­elled to dump the body.

The path lead­ing to the riv­er where Ashan­ti was dumped quick­ly changed from a paved road in­to a mud­dy dirt trail that could on­ly fit one car at a time. — With re­port­ing by Soyi­ni Grey