By Wendell Davidson

RELATIVES Schenise Apple, 26, the young nurse whose body was found hanging at the nurse’s hostel, in Mahdia, Region Eight, are demanding answers from the authorities regarding her death.

Police Commander `F Division, Kevin Adonis, on Sunday said there was no new information on Apple’s death. According to the results of the post-mortem on Friday, Apple, formerly of Lot 323 Block 22, Linden, Region 10, committed suicide.

However, relatives of the dead woman are not convinced that the young woman took her own life, claiming that such behaviour is not consistent with her disposition. They feel that attempts are being made to cover-up something disquieting.

In addition, her father Dexter Copeland has expressed disappointment with how, “everything regarding my daughter’s death, from the reported discovery to now,” has unfolded.

“There are more questions than answers and I need to get to the bottom of it all. Schenise and I and her mother were very close. She was anxiously awaiting the return of her mother from overseas, so she can get her new phone and other things she requested. We last spoke with her on Sunday, she was in high spirits, why then, why would she do something like that? I am still in a daze, I am still confused,” said the father.

He added: “To date, I have not been officially told what is the cause of death, unlike other persons who were there awaiting the autopsies on the bodies of relatives. They were told, so why weren’t we? I, nor any relative, was not allowed to witness the examination; instead, a policeman (name given) approached and showed me photos on his personal phone of the body cuts on her wrists and feet, that it is claimed she inflicted herself. Is this how it is done, photos are taken on the personal cellphone of the policeman who witnesses an autopsy.”

Copeland said he also finds baffling that he and relatives are the ones who have since the incident been reaching out to both the hospital officials and the police. Not a single police or hospital official has visited us or called by telephone. No even those at Mahdia with whom she worked.

“I am the one who made contact. Is this the way the relatives of a public servant, who was serving her country dutifully, should be treated with such disdain?” he asked.

The father said he was told about a football match but as far as he knows, his daughter did not know.

SHOCK

The next thing, he said, he heard his daughter is dead.

“The body was sent from Mahdia on Tuesday, I saw it myself, I did not see cuts I am now being shown. I saw a laceration on the neck and on the back and the fingers looked blue. On Wednesday, when initially we were told that the post-mortem would have been done, myself and other relatives went to the GPHC (Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation) morgue. I identified the body and I did not see those marks they are claiming. I was not allowed to remain to witness the examination. I was told to wait by a counter outside. It was to have been done by a female, said to be a pathologist, who said not long that because of the circumstances a senior person will have to do it,” the father said.

He said he was invited to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), where a senior officer had shown him the same pictures that the policeman had taken and was asked to give a statement, but refused.

“I have questions to ask, I have photos with my daughter hanging that has been circulating on social network, and my family and I have been analysing them with what the policeman had. I want to know why no family member was invited to witness the autopsy, why was the body brought from Lyken’s Funeral Home on Friday and it was not stored at the hospital mortuary? Is there something fishy that efforts are being made to cover-up?” he asked.

The father disclosed that even after his daughter was supposed to be dead, “her cellular phone was still active.” Someone, pretending to be her, texted her boyfriend who resides in Linden. However, the tone of the conversation was not consistent with how he and the young woman would normally communicate with each other, the father noted.

Copeland said he intends to seek justice for the second of his five children, after he, her mother, her sibling and other bid her farewell on June 16. He is not buying the story that his daughter “committed suicide.”