Family awaits autopsy in Stacy Samaroo death

Sascha Wil­son

The par­ents of Sta­cy Sama­roo, whose body was found float­ing in the sea in To­ba­go last Tues­day, are still await­ing word on when the au­top­sy will take place on the sis­ter isle.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, her moth­er Lystra “Vashti” Sama­roo said two fam­i­ly mem­bers will re­turn to To­ba­go for the au­top­sy, af­ter which the fam­i­ly will make arrange­ments to bring her body back to Trinidad for the fu­ner­al.

Sama­roo said the fam­i­ly does not yet know whether her daugh­ter was mur­dered, as de­tec­tives are await­ing the re­sults of the post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion.

“We spoke to the po­lice on Sun­day when they said when they got in con­tact with the pathol­o­gist they will call us,” she said, ex­plain­ing that a foren­sic pathol­o­gist from Trinidad would have to trav­el to To­ba­go to con­duct the au­top­sy. “We are hop­ing that they call us be­fore the week is fin­ished,” Sama­roo said.

In a pre­vi­ous in­ter­view, Sama­roo said her daugh­ter trav­elled to To­ba­go in Jan­u­ary to see an eye spe­cial­ist. She lat­er de­cid­ed to re­main on the is­land un­til her next ap­point­ment in April.

How­ev­er, she even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed to re­turn home ear­li­er and had planned to leave To­ba­go last Fri­day.

Sta­cy Sama­roo was the moth­er of a 14-year-old girl.

Her body was found float­ing in the sea in the Hope area. Ini­tial re­ports said a rope was found around her neck. How­ev­er, Sama­roo said po­lice told the fam­i­ly it may have been de­bris in the ocean that be­came tan­gled around the body. In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.