Police hunt killer after autopsy reveals teen was murdered

Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The fa­ther of 14-year-old An­drea Fran­cis says he was un­aware of the con­tents of her au­top­sy re­port and in­sists he could nev­er harm his chil­dren, even as in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­firmed the Ch­agua­nas teenag­er was mur­dered.

An­drea, of Phyl­lis Lane Ex­ten­sion, En­ter­prise Street, Long­denville, was found dead in her bed­room on Ju­ly 4, days af­ter re­ceiv­ing her SEA re­sults. A stu­dent of Long­denville Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, she had earned a place at Cunu­pia High School. There were claims at the time that she may have self-harmed.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly’s home yes­ter­day and spoke with her fa­ther, Andy Fran­cis, 44, who sat on the gallery and spoke through a bur­glar-proof gate.

Fran­cis said he has not re­ceived the au­top­sy re­port and on­ly learnt of its con­tents through re­ports cir­cu­lat­ing on­line.

“Mon­day ah went down, I eh get no au­top­sy. Wednes­day, no au­top­sy. Fri­day, when ah went back they say the au­top­sy has been done but they can­not give me no in­for­ma­tion on it be­cause they eh find noth­ing, no cause of death, so they eh gimme pa­per for cause of death, no death cer­tifi­cate.”

Asked about the au­top­sy re­port cir­cu­lat­ing on­line, Fran­cis said, “We knows noth­ing about that. My daugh­ter went and sleep the Fri­day evening, al­though she was vom­it­ing and thing. She went and sleep and in the morn­ing we find her dead.”

He de­nied harm­ing his daugh­ter, say­ing he fought a cus­tody bat­tle to re­gain his chil­dren.

“I does work hard to mind them,” he said, adding that he re­mains “con­fused” and is hurt by spec­u­la­tion sur­round­ing An­drea’s death.

“That is a mys­tery to me and on­ly God knows bet­ter.”

A po­lice re­port ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia de­tailed the au­top­sy re­port which con­firmed the teen was mur­dered.

Coun­cil­lor Bren­da John, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for En­ter­prise South/Long­denville North on the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, ex­plained that the post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion found An­drea had been beat­en and stran­gled. She said An­drea had com­plained of feel­ing un­well be­fore her death.

The au­top­sy, con­duct­ed by pathol­o­gist Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley, re­vealed marks of vi­o­lence in the pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers. The cause of death was de­ter­mined to be man­u­al stran­gu­la­tion, blunt force trau­ma to the skull and right or­bit, and as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis.

“I said from day one, let the au­top­sy take place,” John said. “They are say­ing that she was mur­dered, she was stran­gled and she was mur­dered. I pray and hope that God they get the per­son who is re­spon­si­ble for this.”

John said the killing has left her deeply shak­en.

“I want to bawl. I don’t know how to feel as a moth­er of two. As I stat­ed, it is sad, it is sad that this come and hap­pen to this 14-year-old that I hand­ed a SEA pack­age to not too long ago.”

She called on the po­lice to find the killer and to en­sure the safe­ty of An­drea’s fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly her 16-year-old sis­ter, Ariel Fran­cis.

John al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, not­ing that An­drea’s moth­er died last year.

“It is re­al­ly sad to know that a teenag­er who is now start­ing her life, that she couldn’t move on to the next step. She didn’t get that op­por­tu­ni­ty, like most youths who look for­ward to their new school. That was snatched away from her.”