Sheema Mangar case
Two years after Sheema Mangar was killed while attempting to chase down a man who had moments before snatched her cellular phone, police seem no closer to solving the case and even as a sample critical to the investigation still remains in a Barbados laboratory, her relatives remain firm that they will not give up.
It was the police who in January revealed that a hair sample which was to be taken to Barbados for testing in October 2010 had been left behind by a policeman, but was eventually dispatched to Bridgetown in August last year and the results are being awaited.
Contacted Crime Chief Seelall Persaud while pointing out that there have been no new developments in the investigation said that they are still awaiting the results of the sample.
Radica Thakoor said that it pains her daily to know that her daughter was snatched from her prematurely and after so long the police are still unable to answer her questions and give her family justice.
“September 12 was hard for us,” she told this newspaper recently as she recalled how she wept on that day.
Thakoor who has often expressed frustration at the pace of the police probe said that sometimes she feels as though she has no fight left in her, but at the same time she knows that she has to be strong for her family.
She recalled that the day before the two year anniversary she spoke with a senior police officer at Eve Leary who had nothing new to tell her. She said that according to the officer investigators were awaiting the results of the sample sent to Barbados.
She said that no reason was given for the delay or when the results would be expected.
During the interview with Stabroek News she queried why the results of a single sample were taking so long.
She went as far as to say that the authorities seemed to care very little about the pain she and her relatives are going through.
“It has been two years already and I hope that we wouldn’t be in the same position next year,” she said. She told this newspaper that she is so frustrated with the work of the police that she does not know to whom to turn or what to do.
Her daughter was innocent, she said, and did not deserve such a death, and while she grieves, the killer roams free and may never be brought to justice.
Speaking on the sample being left behind, Thakoor said that she cannot comprehend how this could have happened.
Sheema, then a 20 year old Demerara Bank employee was robbed of her mobile phone some time after 6 pm on September 11 as she waited for transportation on North Road, close to Camp Street.
The young woman chased the perpetrator, who jumped into a car and ran her down when she tried to stop him from fleeing. The woman was dragged from the Bedford Methodist Church at Camp Street and North Road to the intersection of Camp and Church streets. She died hours later at the St Joseph Mercy Hospital from a ruptured spleen, which was one of the many injuries she sustained.
Acting on information, police had held a suspect and detained his car. However several days later, the man was released. The young woman who was studying to become an accountant was killed one month before her 21st birthday.
Police said that two cars suspected to have been involved in the matter were processed and items from the vehicles were submitted to the Police Forensic Laboratory for analysis.
It was stated that during October 2010 the Officer in-charge of the Forensic Laboratory was instructed to take the samples to the Barbados Police Forensic Laboratory for analysis which he did. While there officials of the Barbados Police Forensic Laboratory had indicated to him that they would complete the analysis by January 2011.
Those results came back in July last year, the police had said while noting that they did not include the analysis of a hair sample that had been found on one of the vehicles. Enquiries revealed that it had not been submitted as it had been left behind.
The police who had sent out a press release on the issue following a newspaper article expressed disappointment “at the continuing publication of inaccurate and misleading information concerning police-related issues by the Kaieteur News which can only be construed as aimed at sullying the image of the force.”
It was noted that the article accused the “Police Top Brass” of lying to the public, the media, and to Mangar’s family on the issue of the samples being taken to Barbados for analysis, when in fact the police officials had been truthful and correct.
