Bridgette Gangadin’s third autopsy, which was ordered by the high court and should be done by today, had not been conducted up to press time last night, her relatives said.
The woman’s husband, Dwarka Gangadin, was granted an ex-parte interim injunction on Saturday by Justice Rishi Persaud. This resulted in Bridgette’s funeral coming to an abrupt halt just a few minutes before her cremation. The court hearing continues this morning and the woman’s relatives have since indicated that they will be present.
Last Sunday around 2.25 am Bridgette’s mangled remains were discovered on the Vigilance Public Road a short distance from the entrance of the police station, with “suspected marks of violence.” Police had initially said that they were treating the woman’s death as a murder. Government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh the following day conducted an autopsy concluding that it was crushing injuries to the head caused by a wheel and a fractured skull that had caused her death.
Relatives had reported that Bridgette, 29, and her husband Dwarka, 34, had left their Lusignan home the night before and travelled to Enterprise where they were expected to go shrimp-catching with some friends. However, the trip was aborted and the couple left and it was believed that they were heading home. About an hour later the husband returned to the Enterprise home without his wife and when questioned about her he did not answer. The police were contacted and he was arrested. Dwarka had reportedly told investigators that his wife jumped out of the truck and he accidentally ran over her head.
The woman’s relatives were adamant that Dwarka had killed her, and requested that an independent post-mortem be done. Trinidadian pathologist Professor Hubert Daisley was hired by Bridgette’s relatives to conduct an independent examination and a provisional report on his findings was submitted to ranks at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters, Eve Leary on Friday night. The report among other things said that the woman had been strangled. On the pathologist’s return to Trinidad he will send a complete report along with photographic evidence, this newspaper was told.
Following this Dwarka sought the injunction to have yet another independent autopsy conducted on his dead wife. Attorney-at-law Basil Williams, representing the interest of Bridgette’s family, had told Stabroek News that the family had no objections to a third independent autopsy. He repeated this yesterday and said that the third autopsy had not yet been conducted on the body of Bridgette Gangadin.
