Mark Bas­sant &

Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

The moth­er of teenag­er Ri­han­na Parks, who was found shot in an aban­doned house in St James on Mon­day, is seek­ing an­swers sur­round­ing her daugh­ter’s death, as she does not be­lieve her child was in any gun­play as was be­ing re­port­ed by tra­di­tion­al and so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone, Let­zia Brute said her daugh­ter’s shoot­ing re­mained a mys­tery to the fam­i­ly.

“I want an­swers as to how my daugh­ter re­al­ly died. She would have turned 17 years next week Tues­day and there was al­ready a par­ty planned for her,” Brute said.

Parks, 16, was a for­mer pupil of Tran­quil­i­ty Gov­ern­ment and had just fin­ished a nail tech­ni­cian course at Ser­vol.

Brute re­mem­bered her daugh­ter as some­one who would al­ways want to make peo­ple around her hap­py.

“My daugh­ter was the life of the par­ty and she would al­ways make peo­ple hap­py. You can ask the neigh­bour, ask any­one,” she said

Brute said on Sun­day she left her daugh­ter at home, not­ing when she woke up she (Parks) cooked and did some house chores be­fore leav­ing the house to meet up with some of her friends to go and lime.

In an ini­tial po­lice re­port, in­ves­ti­ga­tors said they be­lieve that “gun­play” at an aban­doned house in St James end­ed when the teenag­er was shot in the ab­domen. Parks, who lived at LP#69 Up­per Bournes Road, suc­cumbed to her in­jury while at the St James In­fir­mary.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 5 pm on Mon­day res­i­dents at Up­per Wood­bine Trace, Aboud Cir­cu­lar, St James, heard a sin­gle gun­shot. Res­i­dents be­gan to search the area and lat­er found the wound­ed teen in­side an aban­doned con­crete house off a hill. She had a gun­shot wound in the low­er ab­domen. The res­i­dents took her to the St James In­fir­mary where she died at about 5.34 pm.

Po­lice and peo­ple close to the girl’s fam­i­ly be­lieve the girl went there with some­one and they were play­ing with a gun when it ac­ci­den­tal­ly went off, shoot­ing her. Po­lice of­fi­cers are ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have seen the per­son the girl was in the ac­com­pa­ny of, to con­tact them at 999, 800-TIPS or 482-GARY.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.