Autopsy proves lad died of haemorrhagic shock

–but cartridge wadding not found
THE wad, one of the components of the shotgun cartridge which was expected to be found imbedded in the remains of teenager Andel Daniels if he were indeed shot at close range, was not found by Government Pathologist Dr Vivikanand Brijmohan when he performed an autopsy on Daniels’s body at the New Amsterdam Hospital mortuary.This newspaper was reliably informed that the cartridge casing should have been recovered, but for reasons not stated, it was not. Further forensic tests are expected to be performed on the body, but the pathologist has recorded death as due to shock and haemorrhage due to a gunshot injury.

On Friday, August 5, sleuths from the Central Police Station were dispatched to Catherineburg, Canje River, to ascertain how the nineteen-year-old lad, formerly of High Dam, Caracas, Mount Sinai, [locally referred to as Angoy’s Avenue, a squatting area on the eastern fringe of New Amsterdam) had sustained a gunshot wound to his abdomen, just above his navel.

His maternal relatives had hours earlier told this reporter that the dreadlocked teen had left home in March to go work with friends on a cultivation plot at Catherineburg, a five-mile journey from the riverine community of Ikura.

The house in which he was staying was reportedly ‘being plumbed’, and the stairs and landing were not properly attached. Further, he reportedly had an urgent call of nature, and because a tiger had recently been sighted, he grabbed the gun, which was owned by someone else, and ventured out into the dark. It was in this haste that the landing reportedly collapsed and the gunshot was discharged, hitting him in his abdomen.

Following the loud explosion, a seventeen-year-old lad who was in close proximity responded and placed the injured youth in a canoe, which transported him to Ikura, then to Baracara, where he was detained for approximately two hours before the journey to New Amsterdam began. However, he died before reaching the Berbice township.

It was stated that Daniels had expressed regret over the incident to those he had come in contact with, and had assured the accompanying teenager that he would not be in trouble as the incident was his [Andel’s] doing.

However, police are seeking additional information from the teenager who had paddled the injured man from Catherineburg to Ikura. The teen has been ordered to report at the Central Police Station daily.

Meanwhile, news of Andel’s fate has devastated his relatives. His mother, Gould Marcell Amsterdam, called ‘Massa’, was 37 years old and seven months pregnant with a female child when she went missing in October 2013 and has since not been seen. She had been a mother of three and a member of the Neighbourhood Police when she left home to visit Errol Lindo, the father of one of her children. Lindo has since died in an altercation over land at Caracas.

Andel Daniels, the eldest of Gould’s three children, leaves to mourn his siblings and other relatives.