Autopsy confirms Mercedez beaten to death

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Even with the ar­rest of a sus­pect in the bru­tal mur­der of his daugh­ter, the griev­ing fa­ther of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne says noth­ing will ease the pain or erase the vi­o­lent man­ner in which she lost her life.

As tears rolled down his cheeks, Ronald Cabr­era said an au­top­sy at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre yes­ter­day con­firmed her cause of death as mul­ti­ple blunt force in­juries, con­firm­ing his sus­pi­cion that she had been beat­en to death.

Cabr­era said al­though a 26-year-old sus­pect is in po­lice cus­tody, the re­al­i­ty is that his daugh­ter is dead.

“Could any amount of any­thing bring back my daugh­ter? He could get a mil­lion years. Could it bring back my daugh­ter’s life? And if he didn’t get a mil­lion years and I put my hands on him, would that bring back my daugh­ter? Would it jus­ti­fy any­thing?”

Ques­tion­ing how a per­son could com­mit such a heinous act against a pe­tite, shy and in­no­cent child, the fa­ther said he was try­ing his best to keep his emo­tions un­der con­trol.

“I un­der­stand two wrongs don’t make a right. But you took my 12-year-old from me. You planned your route on the road. You are sup­posed to be trust­ed.”

The fa­ther of six said rel­a­tives, friends and the com­mu­ni­ty are try­ing to come to terms with her death.

“It re­al­ly is heart-wrench­ing. It just keeps ring­ing in my head what my lit­tle eight-year-old come to me, telling me, hug­ging me up cry­ing, ask­ing if she re­al­ly have to go back to school.”

He al­so called on the au­thor­i­ties to put pro­grammes in place to help young peo­ple stay on the right track, say­ing this could help pre­vent them from be­com­ing in­di­vid­u­als who com­mit such heinous acts.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Mer­cedez’s Los Iros Beach Road home yes­ter­day, her moth­er, Annarese Layne, was not at home, as she had gone to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre for the au­top­sy.

While the com­mu­ni­ty is a close-knit and peace­ful one, vil­lager Ray Sem­per urged par­ents and guardians not to take chances with their chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly when us­ing pub­lic trans­port.

“The chil­dren not safe,” he said.

“If you are putting your child in a car, just watch the car, watch the dri­ver.”

De­scrib­ing Mer­cedez as a qui­et child, he said her death shocked the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty.

“The last time I heard some­thing like this hap­pen, I prob­a­bly was a child. A child from Los Iros go­ing to school nev­er made it to school, raped and killed the same way. To me, I find it un­ac­cept­able.”

The of­fi­cial po­lice re­port stat­ed that she was re­port­ed miss­ing by her grand­fa­ther around 4 pm on Sat­ur­day. He told po­lice that at 11.30 am, he placed her in­to a pink-coloured wag­on and asked the male dri­ver, whom he did not know, to drop her home less than five min­utes away. She nev­er reached her des­ti­na­tion. In­stead, po­lice, vil­lagers and the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team launched a search. The fol­low­ing morn­ing, around 6.43 am, a work­er with Trin­i­ty Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Ser­vices ar­rived at Well #ER 46, about 500 feet along a dirt road off Cara­pal Road, Erin, and dis­cov­ered the child’s body ly­ing face down and mo­tion­less. Among items found near­by were a plas­tic bag with packs of Ra­men noo­dles, a cir­cu­lar piece of wood and a bro­ken beer bot­tle.

While fu­ner­al arrange­ments have not yet been fi­nalised, a rel­a­tive said a can­dle­light vig­il is al­so be­ing planned ten­ta­tive­ly for Fri­day.

Erin coun­cil­lor Ar­lene Ramdeo, who vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly along with Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo yes­ter­day, said the com­mu­ni­ty was shocked and sad­dened by the tragedy.

Ramdeo, who al­so lives in the com­mu­ni­ty, said she knows the fam­i­ly well and ini­tial­ly prayed for the child’s safe­ty when she was re­port­ed miss­ing.

“When I got the mes­sage on Sun­day morn­ing that they found the child dead in Cara­pal, it was re­al­ly hurt­ful,” Ramdeo said.

Ramdeo, who is al­so the Ran­cho Que­ma­do Vil­lage Coun­cil pres­i­dent, said she, like many res­i­dents, utilis­es PH trans­port.

“As vil­lagers, we need to do more. We need to be our broth­ers’ keep­ers.”

She said they will work with the Erin Vil­lage Coun­cil to put safe­ty mea­sures in place to try to pre­vent a re­cur­rence.

“One as­pect is that we will be go­ing to groups, try­ing to get the dri­vers, mak­ing a list and let­ting the com­mu­ni­ty know the list of dri­vers that we have and can hope­ful­ly trust go­ing for­ward.”

Mean­while, the may­or called on po­lice to crack down on PH dri­vers, which he de­scribed as il­le­gal. He ques­tioned whether some dri­vers avoid ap­ply­ing for taxi badges be­cause they may be un­able to ob­tain a cer­tifi­cate of char­ac­ter due to their crim­i­nal past.

Ex­press­ing out­rage over the atro­cious mur­der of the child, Mayrhoo again called for the en­force­ment of the death penal­ty.

“This fam­i­ly is dev­as­tat­ed. This is why I say some­body who has com­mit­ted an act like this needs to go to the hang­man. What could that child, at 12 years old, do to de­serve this? Noth­ing. That child has not even start­ed to live yet and look what hap­pened,” Mayrhoo said.

Pledg­ing sup­port to the fam­i­ly, he said he will to­day take a mo­tion to the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil to as­sist with fu­ner­al ex­pens­es.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices (SSS) al­so yes­ter­day vis­it­ed St Fran­cis Erin RC School, where Mer­cedez was a Stan­dard Four stu­dent, and met with stu­dents and staff.

“Every­one, the chil­dren, were so dev­as­tat­ed this morn­ing. It was re­al­ly hard. I don’t think any­one could have re­al­ly func­tioned un­der these cir­cum­stances,” a vil­lager said.

Mean­while, yes­ter­day’s field trip by Mer­cedez’s class to the Mount St Bene­dict Monastery was can­celled.

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pressed sad­ness at the death of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to her fam­i­ly, friends and com­mu­ni­ty.

It said no child should be sub­ject­ed to fear, abuse, ex­ploita­tion or vi­o­lence, adding that every child has a right to safe­ty and to grow in a se­cure en­vi­ron­ment.

The au­thor­i­ty called for a full and thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion and urged that all those in­volved be held ac­count­able.

It al­so re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing part­ner­ships, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness ini­tia­tives aimed at im­prov­ing child safe­ty.

The pub­lic was re­mind­ed to re­port con­cerns about a child’s safe­ty to the Po­lice at 999 or the Au­thor­i­ty at 996.