POLICE Crime Chief Seelall Persaud told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that efforts are being made to get a pathologist from overseas to perform a second post mortem on murdered teenager Basmattie Moonsammy.
The mutilated remains of the victim were taken from a shallow grave in a rice field on August 4 and the first autopsy, by Dr. Vivekanand Bridgemohan, did not determine the cause of death.
As a consequence, three suspects who were assisting police with the investigations were released on bail.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law Enforcement) said the second post mortem will guide the course of action to be taken but, for now, arrangements are being made to acquire the services of a foreign pathologist for the exhumation of the corpse.
Initially, three men, from Number 11 Village, West Coast Berbice were held for questioning about the murder, days after the teen’s partly decomposing semi-nude body was discovered by a rice farmer on his way to tend to his crop.
Following the discovery, she was identified by her mother who recognised the clothing she was wearing at the time of her disappearance from home. The 15-year-old, of Woodley Park, another West Coast Berbice village, had left home for an unknown destination on July 29, while her mother was at work.
A missing person report was made to the police and her mother began a search for her that lasted days.
Residents, shocked by the brutal demise of the teen, lent their support to the family in making funeral arrangements.
It is believed that the teen was either lured or forcibly taken to the rice field aback of the village in which she lived, where she was gang-raped and murdered.