A post-mortem examination has confirmed that the 18-year-old girl believed to have been murdered at her West Berbice home on Saturday was electrocuted.
Elsie Shenetta Culley of Number 40 Village was pronounced dead on arrival at the Fort Wellington Hospital around 9 am. The teen had burn marks on two fingers of her left hand.
A suspect, who had recently struck up a friendship with the girl, remains in police custody. The suspect had told police that the teen was electrocuted after she came into contact with wires from her brother’s music set.
However, evidence suggests that Culley may have been killed in a fit of jealousy after the father of her two-year-old daughter had returned to the area the night before and she had been seen talking to him.
Stabroek News understands that Culley was alone at home doing laundry when the suspect of Lichfield whom she reportedly started “talking to a few weeks ago” ap-proached her from the back of the yard. Reports are that he sent her into the house for a phone but a neighbour who was also in her yard and heard the exchange told her not to go. The young woman did not heed the neighbour’s advice and proceeded into the house and the suspect followed soon after. This newspaper was told that shortly after they went into the house Culley started to scream. She reportedly yelled, “You see how you come to kill me,” and then there was silence.
The woman’s brother Lincoln Culley who was returning home from Bush Lot had told Stabroek News that he was about to enter the yard when he saw the suspect running out. He said the suspect told him that his sister had been “shocked” and he ran into the house where he saw her lying motionless on the bed in her bedroom. He picked her up and rushed her to the hospital.
Relatives who learnt what had transpired ran after the suspect, who was heading into the backdam, and apprehended him.
Lincoln, a soldier based at Timehri who came home for the weekend said it appeared as though there was a struggle in his bedroom because the bed was rumpled and the curtain torn down. He said he believes that his sister was carried into her room after the incident. Lincoln said he had attached an extension cord to his music set in his bedroom from another section of the house but he had unplugged it before he left home. He also said that there was no problem with the connections and found it strange that his sister would be shocked “just like that.”
Police have since sent the file to the office of the Director of Public Prosecu-tions for advice.
