AT THE Demerara Assizes yesterday, Justice Jo-Ann Barlow, presiding at the Mocha schoolgirl murder, began conducting a voir dire (a trial within a trial) to determine the admissibility of caution statements given to the police by two alleged murderers.

The alleged murderers Jevon Wharton and Charles Cush, now 25 and 23 respectively, were 16 and 14 when they allegedly committed the offence on nine-year old Sade Stoby, on November 2007.

Her mother Sharon Benny of Barnwell North, Mocha , EBD, testified that she saw her daughter leave home that day in her cream and burgundy school uniform.

Along with other children, she left on her way to school on that fatal day and broke down in Court when relating the discovery of her daughter’s swollen body two days later on a dam near the aqueduct, where her skirt was raised midway on her body while her tight pants and underwear were a short distance away.

The Government’s Senior Pathologist who had performed the post mortem had told the jury about the condition of the body during the bigger trial.

The Prosecution, conducted by State counsel Miss Shonette Austin and Mr. Siand Dhurjon, are expected to close the voir dire today, following which the judge will rule.

In the search for the girl the mother explained how she and a party walked through bushes on the dam which housed small and tall trees.

The girl normally returned home every afternoon about 15:30hrs, but that day she did not return, causing her mother to raise an alarm.

Attorney-at-law Max Mc Kay is representing the accused, Wharton, while Nadan Kissoon is appearing for Cush.

The hearing is continuing.