THE Guyana Police Force which had suicide as one of its apparent causes of death for 15-year-old Alicia Ali of Cummings Lodge, has now discarded that theory and are treating the death as a homicide.A post-mortem which was performed on the body of the teenager who attended the Campbellville Secondary School, found that several factors contributed to the young lady’s death.
According to information which this publication received, Alicia Ali died as a result of drowning, manual strangulation and blunt trauma to the head.
The police who are still conducting investigations to ascertain if the girl was raped, have since taken samples and those are being tested to see if there are traces of sexual assault or rape.
Speaking with this publication, it was noted that while the strangulation of the teen is very straightforward as found by the post-mortem, the blunt trauma and the drowning are what is being carefully looked at by investigators.
One of the theories put forward by one investigator is that the woman might have been strangled then “blacked out” before being left at the location where she was drowned by the rising tide from the Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, the waves most likely had slammed her body against the boulders which form part of the sea defence.
The other is that the person or persons might have held the young lady’s head under the water until she was dead, before leaving her at the location where again, her body might have been slammed against the boulders.
Meanwhile, the police who found an apparent suicide note inside the girl’s room are now looking to question very close family members on any clues that they might have in relation to the young lady’s death.
On Thursday, a teenaged family member told one media house that for some strange reason the details surrounding Alicia’s death do not add up and he stated that the mother of the child was saying one thing and other persons in the family were saying something else.
On Wednesday, the teenager’s body was found among the rocks at the Turkeyen seashore. The police have since questioned several persons who are closely related to the young woman.
The Guyana Chronicle yesterday reported that the ex-lover of the child’s mother had threatened her in the past and although those threats were never reported to the police, the teenager had confided in a close relative about the threats.
Alicia’s body was found on the death anniversary of her father, who died some five years ago.

By Leroy Smith