THE horrific death of 11-year-old Adriana Younge at the Double Day Hotel, Tuschen, has not only brought mass grief, but also set aflame a tide of disinformation, political opportunism, and conspiracy that endangers the justice that everyone claims to seek.
What began as a sad occurrence, a child found dead in a hotel swimming pool, is now a battlefield of competing accounts that dangerously privilege speculation over science and political convenience over reality.
Adriana Younge’s death is no doubt suspicious in circumstances. On April 23, 2025, she was visiting the Double Day Hotel with her grandmother and she was seen last around the pool; the body turned up in that very pool, roughly 20 hours after she went missing.

This peculiarity and sequence of events naturally bring distrust, most significantly about the length of time the body eluded detection after missing-person enquiries started.
Adding to the confusion was that the Guyana Police Force issued-and then withdrew-incorrect reports of CCTV footage that supposedly captured Adriana entering a car. Such misinformation created a perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories and suspicion.
When institutions fail in their duty of care and transparency, people’s trust erodes. The initial police errors in this case, most significantly the premature dissemination of false information, denigrated a lot of faith in the investigation process.

But the response to failure in institutions should be demands for better processes and accountability, not wholesale rejection of scientific fact or the creation of false narratives that benefit political agendas or emotional needs.
In a move previously unseen, which should have been welcomed rather than condemned, three internationally trained forensic pathologists were hired to conduct the autopsy examination of Adriana’s body.
Dr Glenn A. Rudner of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York; Dr Shubhakar Karra Paul from Barbados and Chief Medical Examiner Dr Gary L Collins, for the State of Delaware, the latter one personally chosen by Adriana’s family, were a team without blemishes and political inclination towards Guyana.

Dr Rudner himself brought over 30 years of experience in medicine, clinical practice and investigative pathology, and had prior experience working as a consultant to the FBI and other elite institutions. Such talent and independence should not be dismissed.
The early conclusions from this team of pathologists were unequivocal and consistent: Adriana drowned and there were no signs of sexual attack or forced submersion. No fractures, broken bones, or trauma, and the body lesions were those one would expect to find from death by drowning.

The autopsy was meticulously documented with photographs and video, and even the family’s attorney acknowledged that the process was “meticulous and comprehensive.”
When three independent experts with no shared agenda arrive at the same conclusion, the rational response is to accept their findings as the most reliable representation of reality available to us.
Even after this very extensive autopsy, there remain a few who deny the scientific evidence and propagate conspiracy theories, including, on this occasion, allegedly some members of the Younge family. This is a dangerous tendency we see increasingly in societies: the prioritisation of emotionally gratifying narratives over harsh truths.

When resentment and grief are combined with political opportunism, the result is a toxic brew that can contaminate public debate and make justice impossible.
The rejection of professional conclusions on behalf of unsubstantiated guesswork is not just wrong, it’s hazardous. It denies finality to everyone concerned, diverts resources away from fixing genuine systemic issues and erodes public trust in institutions that for all their limitations are still essential to keep society ticking.

By preparing citizens to ignore scientific consensus for politically convenient explanations, we undermine the principles of informed governance and evidence-based decision-making.
It would be shortsighted not to understand that cases such as Adriana’s often serve as a proxy for broader social tensions, most particularly over justice and race.

But there was no need to discredit evidence when tests were being conducted openly and independently. Adriana’s pathologists were not working for the government or the police; they were foreign experts utilising scientific methods to determine the truth.
When President, Dr Irfaan Ali made it possible for international pathologists to be involved and even accommodated, the family’s insistence on a third expert on the state’s budget, this was an openness to transparency that should be applauded.

The way forward must be paved with a commitment to both truth and compassion. We can acknowledge the family’s pain while still insisting on respect for scientific findings. We can critique institutional failings while still recognising when those institutions take extraordinary steps to address concerns about impartiality. We can discuss broader issues of safety and accountability without manufacturing conspiracies that serve only to inflame tensions and prevent closure.

The death of a child is a tragedy beyond measure. Adriana Younge ought to have had the option of a long life. Her memory ought to be accorded with honesty and not exploited for political ends or tainted with layers of disinformation.
The toxicology reports and final findings should be patiently waited out. In the meantime, we would all be wise to think about our obligation to the truth, even if it brings no comfort and serves no other purpose than itself.
Justice for Adriana is a lot of things, but for sure it begins with a truthful account of what actually happened. Anything less dishonours her memory and ours.