By Oluatoyin Alleyne

The battered and naked body of a 15-year-old girl was found early yesterday morning on the lonely Hope Estate Access Road, East Coast Demerara.

The body of Sheliza Khan called ‘Shelly’, who only turned fifteen last April, was discovered lying face down hours after she went missing from a Mahaica Chinese restaurant.

Police last evening said that the girl had suspected gunshot wounds to her head and other marks of violence about her body. The lawmen found four .32 spent shells at the scene.

A grief-stricken Chanawattie Khan identified the body of her youngest child yesterday afternoon at the Lyken Funeral Home and told Stabroek News that her daughter’s face was so battered that she was almost unrecognisable. She and other relatives rushed down to the funeral home after being informed by the police that the body was found. The woman said from all indications her daughter was also sexually assaulted. Some of her teeth were knocked out and the back of her head bashed in.

“I know she body and I recognise she but it was hard, she had on pink cutex (nail polish) and I recognise it. But if you see wah dem do to me daughter she nah deserve to dead like dah. All she teeth dem knock out and she had cut pun she mouth,” the woman said.

When Stabroek News visited the area where the teenager was found there were some spots of blood visible. The area where she was found is very lonely but persons living in the Hope Scheme, which is opposite the area, reported that they heard what sounded like gunshots sometime early yesterday morning but did not venture outside.

It is not clear who discovered the corpse but one woman told Stabroek News that she rushed to the scene after hearing reports and saw the body lying on its stomach. The woman said no one attempted to turn over the body but they observed that the back of the head had a wound and there was lots of blood.

She said there was no sign of clothing next to the naked body.

Chanawattie recalled that three weeks ago her daughter was threatened by a man who lives in the area. According to the woman her daughter reported the matter to the Mahaica police but no action was taken against the man. “She come home and tell me how he tell she dat he like she and if he can’t get she no man could get she.

He get he wife and children but he tell she, how he go lef he wife fo she and mind she and she report the matter because she frighten he,” the woman said.

The teenager left her Lot 50 Lancaster Village, East Coast Demerara home, at around 7:30 on Saturday night in the company of a neighbour to purchase Chinese food at Mahaica. Prior to her departure she was playing cricket in the neighbourhood and upon her arrival home she found that most of the food her mother had cooked that day was already consumed. “She tell me how she want rice and me give she seven hundred dollar and I went and check with (name given) to mek sure that she going with she,” the woman said. She said she was not at home when her daughter left and did not know until yesterday morning that she had not returned home. Chanawattie explained that she does not sleep home some nights and her daughter would usually be with her older sister in the bottom flat of a two-flat house with their brother and his wife in the top flat.

According to the neighbour, shortly after they arrived at the Chinese shop she got a call from her husband on her cellular phone. At the time they were in the process of purchasing the food and she left the teenager in the shop and went outside to answer the phone. “I lef she in the shop and I went outside and because of the noise I had to go behind a wall and stoop down to hear my husband and when I finish and go back in the shop I ent see Shelly no where.” At the time the young girl was wearing an orange top and pink pants.

The woman said she started looking for the girl but no one seemed to know where she had gone.

Questioned as to whether anyone spoke to them while in the restaurant, the neighbour said no one attempted to talk to them and as far as she knew the teenager did not seem to know anyone while there.

After some time passed and the girl still did not return the neighbour said she decided to call a friend who drives a taxi as she had no money to go home.

She said she and the taxi driver drove around in the area looking for the girl but there was no sign of her and she decided to return home. “I say she must be see somebody and talking to them and she would go home after. So yesterday morning when I get up I went to she house and then she sister tell me she ent reach home yet so we went and tell she mother,” the neighbour said.

The child’s mother said that after looking for her daughter and not finding her she decided to report the matter to the police.

Later in the day she was told that a body was found and she travelled to the city and identified her child’s body.

According to her mother she stopped attending school sometime earlier this year and went to Berbice and lived with a man for about six weeks.

But she said she later brought her back home after Sheliza called and explained that the man was having an affair with someone else. “But the boy ent had no problem with she coming back because he had he girlfriend,” the woman said.

She described her daughter as someone who was always jovial and “love to dance.”