By Jeune Bailey Van Keric

ALMOST six months after 12-year old Ashley Agard was found unresponsive at a house in Longsdale Village, East Bank Berbice, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) has ordered an inquest into her demise.

Police Divisional Commander Calvin Brutus told the Berbice media on Monday that following a visit to his office by relatives of the deceased child, further information was placed in a file and sent to the DPP for advice.

“The legal minds decided there was no evidence of a crime, as it stands, and referred it for an inquest,” Brutus said. “Sometimes, at the end of an inquest, it becomes a crime, based on the findings…” he added.

On January 12, the child’s parents had postponed her funeral, and instead called on the authorities to intervene in the matter, as they were dissatisfied with the investigation, and wanted “Justice for Ashley”.

Speaking to Guyana Chronicle from their modest Rotterdam, East Bank Berbice home at the time, where Ashley and her three siblings, Romaldo aged 13, Celina, 10, and Orlando, nine, lived with their parents, mother, Samantha Downer said she was of the belief that her daughter’s death was not accidental but a deliberate act.

She’d also expressed dissatisfaction with the findings of the post mortem, which excluded the fact that there were markings on the right side of the child’s neck, and wanted to know why she and her husband, Sylvester Durant, as the child’s parents, were not allowed to witness the post mortem, and were not told the cause of death.

There were also questions as to why the Gaffars, at whose home the incident occurred, were treated with such deference by police investigators, while they, Ashley’s parents, were treated like criminals.

STILL IN THE DARK

Both parents claimed at the time to be still in the dark as to what really transpired, as to have caused their daughter’s demise.

Said Samantha, “The story is conflicting; it’s mixed up. They are not telling me exactly what transpired. I have a hammock here at home; it is higher than the one at Wasir’s house. Ashley normally lie in the hammock; it’s nothing strange for her. Their hammock is much lower; about a foot off the ground. I just don’t believe Ashley got entangled. My daughter was very outspoken. If she’d encountered difficulty, she would have screamed… I am not satisfied; I want justice for ‘Buckie’.”

The last time she saw Ashley alive, Samantha said, was sometime after midday on Monday, walking down the road with Shunamae Gaffar. She herself was waiting on transportation to go to the New Amsterdam hospital to see a relative who was expecting a baby.

On January 6, Ashley was found unresponsive at the premises of the Gaffars, who live in Longsdale Village, a short distance from where the child lived with her parents in Rotterdam Village.

According to Shunamae Gaffar, she was alerted that something was amiss after hearing her daughter screaming. “I was upstairs; she and Ashley was playing. She screamed calling me, ‘Mummy come see whuh Ashley do.’ When I came downstairs, I saw Ashley seated on the ground with a piece of the hammock material around her neck, and froth flowing from her mouth. I removed the cloth from around her neck; I put her to lie on the ground. I called my neighbour, Alana. She said Ashley was breathing, and that I should call her mother. When Ashley’s mother, Samantha, came, she started to scream, and while doing so, picked up the child and took her home.”

FEELING UNWELL
According to Samantha, Ashley did not go to school that day because she’d earlier complained of having a headache. She said that after taking Ashley home when she left the Gaffars, she put her on the bed to lie down, hoping that that would have helped her revive. But, Ramaldo, her eldest son, became concerned when he saw she was not waking up, and hurriedly ran to the nearby sawmill where their father worked. And after telling him what he feared, together they rushed home and immediately took the pre-teen to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

A post mortem examination conducted by Government Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh at the Anthony’s Funeral Home, found that the cause of death as “asphyxiation due to broncho aspiration of gastric content, compounded by compression injury to neck”.