Police revisit key locations as probe into Mercedez’s murder continues

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

As ad­vo­ca­cy groups re­new calls for stronger mea­sures to pro­tect chil­dren fol­low­ing the mur­der of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors vis­it­ed the sus­pect’s home and oth­er key lo­ca­tions as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

Of­fi­cers at­tached to the Re­gion Three Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, led by ASP Ma­haraj, vis­it­ed the sus­pect’s home at Dick­ie Trace, Pa­lo Seco, yes­ter­day, as they con­tin­ued in­quiries.

The team al­so re­vis­it­ed the Layne fam­i­ly’s home on Los Iros Beach Road and the cor­ner of Loren­sotte Trace, where Mer­cedez was re­port­ed­ly placed in­to a PH taxi short­ly be­fore she dis­ap­peared.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that on Mon­day, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty vis­it­ed the child’s fam­i­ly home. Mer­cedez lived with her moth­er and sib­lings and was the sec­ond youngest of five chil­dren.

A rel­a­tive, how­ev­er, said the team was un­able to meet with Mer­cedez’s eight-year-old sis­ter, who re­mains se­vere­ly trau­ma­tised.

The child, the rel­a­tive said, con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence night­mares and dif­fi­cul­ty sleep­ing.

“She keeps cry­ing and ask­ing for her sis­ter and best friend,” the rel­a­tive said.

The Au­thor­i­ty’s team is ex­pect­ed to re­turn soon for a fol­low-up vis­it.

Mean­while, in a heart­felt so­cial me­dia post to her sis­ter, Sheree­ka Layne wrote: “I love you so much baby­girl. This re­al­ly breaks my heart, wish there was some­thing I could do to keep you with us. You’re such a beau­ti­ful soul, you didn’t de­serve this, but God don’t sleep baby­girl.”

She de­scribed Mer­cedez as the fun­ni­est and most adorable per­son she had ever known.

“I don’t think I can deal with this ba­by, but I have to be strong for mom and our oth­er sib­lings,” she wrote.

Mean­while, as pub­lic out­rage and con­cern con­tin­ue over the killing of Mer­cedez and oth­er cas­es in­volv­ing chil­dren, Con­flict Women, a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, called on the Gov­ern­ment to re-es­tab­lish the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Min­istry, which Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had es­tab­lished dur­ing her first tenure in of­fice.

Asiya Mo­hammed, CEO and founder of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, al­so re­called that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ap­point­ed the late Hazel Brown and Bren­da Gopeesingh as spe­cial en­voys to the Com­mon­wealth for women and girls.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Mer­cedez was re­port­ed miss­ing by her grand­fa­ther around 4 pm on Sat­ur­day. He told po­lice that at about 11.30 am he placed her in­to a wag­on and asked the male dri­ver, whom he did not know, to drop her home, less than five min­utes away. She nev­er re­turned.

In­stead, po­lice, vil­lagers and mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team launched a search.

The fol­low­ing day, at about 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, dis­cov­ered the child’s body ly­ing face down and mo­tion­less.

Among the items found near­by were a plas­tic bag con­tain­ing packs of ra­men noo­dles, a cir­cu­lar piece of wood and a bro­ken beer bot­tle.

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments and a can­dle­light vig­il were still be­ing fi­nalised yes­ter­day.