Derek Achong

The mere sight of the pair of cloth­ing her son was wear­ing the last time she saw him alive, a lit­tle over 14 years ago, was enough to make Sean Luke’s moth­er break down in pain and an­guish, yes­ter­day.

Pauline Barath, who had been rel­a­tive­ly com­posed since she be­gan tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore Jus­tice Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds, last Fri­day, was un­der­stand­ably grief-striken as she was shown a pair of blue shorts and un­der­wear and asked to iden­ti­fy them once more.

“It’s my ba­by un­der­wear. His jock­ey shorts,” Barath screamed.

The wails and tears that fol­lowed ap­peared to have a con­ta­gious emo­tion­al ef­fect on al­most all present in the vir­tu­al hear­ing in­clud­ing sea­soned pros­e­cu­tors and de­fence at­tor­neys, and Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds, who all stayed silent be­fore Barath was al­lowed to com­pose her­self pri­vate­ly and use the wash­room.

Akeel Mitchell and Richard Cha­too, who stand ac­cused of com­mit­ting Luke’s es­pe­cial­ly heinous mur­der as teenagers, sat sto­ical­ly from sep­a­rate video con­fer­enc­ing rooms at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca, through­out Barath’s har­row­ing tes­ti­mo­ny.

At the start of the hear­ing, Barath re­sumed by say­ing that Mitchell said he did not know where Luke was af­ter she found him sit­ting near a shed in her yard on March 26, 2006.

Barath, who had awak­en to find that Luke had left home while she was asleep, claimed she was not im­me­di­ate­ly con­cerned by her six-year-old son’s ab­sence.

“I was nev­er con­cerned be­cause I lived around fam­i­ly,” Barath said.

She claimed that Mitchell stayed with her for a short while un­til Cha­too and a group group of boys from their Hen­ry Street, Or­ange Val­ley Road, Cou­va, com­mu­ni­ty were walk­ing by her house.

She claimed that Cha­too, who she said would come over to play with Luke in the past, al­so de­nied know­ing where Luke was.

Barath said she then be­gan go­ing to rel­a­tives and neigh­bours homes in search of her son.

Barath claimed that one res­i­dent iden­ti­fied as Mar­vin told her that he had seen Luke walk­ing in a track that led to a fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty.

She spoke to the guard at the lo­ca­tion but he claimed he did not see Luke.

Barath claimed that when she re­turned to the com­mu­ni­ty, Mitchell told her that he had seen Luke go­ing in­to an­oth­er track with a tall man dress­ing in white.

Mitchell’s un­cle and Cha­too’s step­fa­ther Ray­mond Bruzual, who he (Mitchell) had moved in with about three weeks pri­or, then came over and re­layed the same in­for­ma­tion about the man in white

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by Mitchell’s at­tor­ney Mario Mer­rittt, Barath ad­mit­ted that the iden­ti­fied track led to In­shan Ali Park in Cou­va, where Luke’s fa­ther Daniel would meet her when he took his on some week­ends.

Pressed on why Luke’s fa­ther chose to pick him up at the park in­stead at her home, Barath said he pre­ferred that arrange­ment and re­peat­ed­ly de­nied that it was due to him be­ing un­want­ed in the area.

“I know it could not be Sean’s fa­ther,” she said.

Barath ad­mit­ted that when she re­port­ed her son miss­ing she told po­lice what she had heard and al­so that she went to Luke’s fa­ther home in Heights of Aripo to see he had tak­en their son.

“At that time I was grasp­ing at straws and would do any­thing to find my son,” she said.

Luke’s fa­ther then re­turned to Cou­va with her to con­tin­u­ing search­ing.

Barath ad­mit­ted that the fol­low­ing morn­ing she went to the Unit­ed States Em­bassy to re­port Luke miss­ing as he was a US cit­i­zen hav­ing be­ing born in New York. She al­so did a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view.

When she re­turned home, there were po­lice and a crowd gath­ered out­side

Po­lice of­fi­cers then es­cort­ed her to an area of the aban­doned sug­ar­cane field, which bounds the com­mu­ni­ty, and asked her to iden­ti­fy the same pair of shorts and un­der­wear she was pre­sent­ed with yes­ter­day

“The pock­ets were pulled out. Sean liked to wear it like that. He use to say it looked like dog­gie ears,” Barath sobbed.

While be­ing quizzed by Mer­ritt, Barath ad­mit­ted that she did not no­tice any red stains on Mitchell’s cloth­ing when she found him in her yard. How­ev­er, she said she was not pay­ing much at­ten­tion to him.

She al­so ac­cept­ed that none of the chil­dren and teenagers, who were with Cha­too, said that they had seen Luke with Mitchell.

Dur­ing their cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of Barath, Mer­ritt and Cha­too’s lawyer Evans Welch both seemed to raise the pos­si­bil­i­ty that a teenage res­i­dent, iden­ti­fied as Avinash, was some­how in­volved in Luke dis­ap­pear­ance and even­tu­al mur­der.

Barath said she saw the teen but nei­ther she nor her son in­ter­act­ed with him as he was much old­er that Luke.

Asked whether Avinash was tall enough to reach the latch of the gate to the prop­er­ty, Barath not­ed that Mitchell and Cha­too would have been able to as well.

Avinash al­so fea­tured heav­i­ly in their cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of the State’s next wit­ness Ne­hemi­ah Ramd­hanie, a neigh­bour who as­sist­ed in search­ing for Luke and found his cloth­ing in the sug­ar­cane field.

Ramd­hanie ad­mit­ted that he (Avinash) was among the search par­ty but de­nied that he (Avinash) had di­rect­ed him and oth­ers where to search.

He al­so de­nied that Avinash had point­ed him in the di­rec­tion where he even­tu­al found the cloth­ing.

He claimed that the sug­ar­cane field was over­grown and he could not see fel­low vil­lagers, who were walk­ing feet apart through it.

He ad­mit­ted that he was not in­volved when Luke’s body was even­tu­al­ly found the fol­low­ing day.

Be­fore the hear­ing was ad­journed pros­e­cu­tor Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal was able to ten­der the un­con­test­ed for­mal ad­mis­sions of some of the wit­ness­es, that will not tes­ti­fy dur­ing the tri­al.

Two of the wit­ness­es were po­lice of­fi­cers, who took pho­tographs when the clothes and Luke’s body was found.

Gris­ly black and white pho­tographs tak­en by one of the of­fi­cers dur­ing Luke’s au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre were al­so dis­played and ten­dered in­to ev­i­dence.

As was the state­ment of the Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer (DMO), who vis­it­ed the crime scene where Luke’s nude body was found and no­ticed a cane stalk pro­trud­ing from his anus.

Mitchell is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kir­by Joseph and Ran­dall Raphael, while Kel­ston Pope and Gabriel Her­nan­dez are rep­re­sent­ing Cha­too.

An­ju Bho­la and Sophia Sandy-Smith are al­so pros­e­cut­ing.

The tri­al is ex­pect­ed to re­sume to­mor­row.