POLICE are yet to make an arrest following the death of schoolboy, Dacwaun Sutherland, of ‘C’ Field, Sophia, Greater Georgetown, whose body was discovered in a trench in ‘B’ Field in the same area on Thursday, July 01, 2010.
Even though the child was sexually molested and his clothes were never found, Police said they may be looking for a sexual predator, who may have lured the boy.
Dacwaun was laid to rest on Sunday.
His mother, Zon Parks, yesterday told the Guyana Chronicle that it is difficult to cope after losing her only child and hopes that justice will be served. She added that her son was killed in a brutal manner, something she cannot comprehend.
However, a post mortem was performed last Friday on the body of Dacwaun by Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh, who gave the cause of death as asphyxiation due to drowning, compounded by compression injury to the neck.
The body of the schoolboy was found on Thursday last, in a canal at ‘C’ Field, Sophia.
Investigations are continuing, Police said.
The mother of the child told the Guyana Chronicle that her only child left her workplace on an errand about 13:00 h the day before to take some meat home and return with some things, including two bottles for them to fetch water home that evening. The grieving woman said, usually, her son, after school, would stay with her until she finished work as a security guard at the Digicel Tower in Sophia and they would go home together.
Other residents confirmed that they regularly used to see mother and son walking to and from school and work daily.
On Wednesday, the boy was seen alive in the village up to about 16:00h, playing with some other children but, after then, his whereabouts were unknown. Persons who live near to where his corpse was found said they were only alerted when another villager raised the alarm on seeing the lifeless body in the water.
It was about an hour after his mother began enquiring about him that a search began, after she had reported him missing at Turkeyen Police Station, where she was told to revisit the precinct in 24 hours.
Park said it was unlike Dacwaun not to return home and he was always with her wherever she went, but is unsure what happened to the eight-year-old, whose neck appeared to have been broken. He was clad only in his underwear when pulled out of the trench, but he had left her workplace dressed in a vest, camouflage pants, footwear, a bag containing some personal effects and two water bottles, she said.