…says held against her will

The teenager who went missing from her Bagotsville, West Demerara home last Thursday was on Monday night found shivering on the Providence Public Road and according to her relatives she said she was held against her will by four persons and the middle of her head shaven.

Sixteen-year-old Dashawna Small known as ‘Shawna’ is now a patient at the West Demerara Hospital where she is under observation and according to her sister, Thecia Arthur, she is very traumatised by the four-day ordeal which saw her being held captive in a room by three men and a woman.

On Monday at around 8 pm the driver of a canter truck saw her on the Providence Public Road and stopped and after she related to him what had happened to her he took her to the Providence Police Station where she was reunited with her relatives.

According to Thecia, with whom the teenager had been living for the last few months after she left the home she shared with her father, Hilton Small, in Buxton, her sister informed her that when she left their home on Thursday she went to lessons. Thecia had previously told Stabroek News that the girl left the house hurriedly after she received a call on her mobile phone.

Small told her relatives that she was standing on the roadway on Thursday even-ing awaiting transportation when a car with three men and a woman approached her and the woman asked her if she was Hilton’s daughter. She replied in the affirmative and asked what was the issue and the woman said they were from Buxton but had just moved into the area and that she resembled Hilton.

She said they drove off and shortly after she saw a car approaching and she flagged it down and when it stopped she got in without realising that it was the car with the same four persons who had spoken to her a few minutes. Before she could have said anything one of the men reportedly placed a rag over her face and she lost consciousness.

When she regained consciousness she was lying in a room and the woman told her that she had to get revenge for what her father did to her. Thecia said her sister related that she was not given anything to eat for the days she was held except for some water to drink.

“She said the woman told the men to shave off some of her hair because they wanted to keep it,” the sister said. And around that time Shawna contacted one of her sisters. Thecia said she was told by her sister that the captors told her to listen to her sister’s voice as she not going to hear it again.

However, on Monday night they sprayed a noxious substance in her face which made her delirious and she was taken to a car and later dropped off on the Providence Public Road. Thecia said the family is concerned about the teenager’s well-being and it is hoped that she suffers no medical problems from her horrific ordeal.

On Sunday Thecia had told Stabroek News that whenever they called her sister’s phone it would either go straight to voice mail or ring out but then the phone would ring back and the caller would hang up without saying anything.

They received a text message from her sister’s phone that said: “I am sorry Shama [believed to be Shawna] is not allow to talk on the phone let me guess u is Hilton child too if so call him and tell him what go around come around.”

The boyfriend had also said he received similar text messages.

The teenager’s father has since spoken to her but Thecia said he has not spoken to other relatives even as the police investigate the matter.