Although the police have closed the case, the relatives are calling on the authorities to reopen the investigation to ascertain how she ended up dead at a Waiakabra shop and what the circumstances were that led to her blood pressure “going up.”
Contacted recently Crime Chief Seelall Persaud said that “once the person died from natural causes the police has no obligation or interest in a further investigation.”
Government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh had given the cause of death as hypertension, but the police have failed to explain how the woman’s clothing came to be disturbed. The two men who were held in connection with the case were released shortly after the post-mortem was done.
Joseph, a 56-year-old mother of six was found dead at the Linden/Soesdyke Highway shop just after 4 am two Mondays ago.
Owner of the shop Felicia Pierre had told Stabroek News that the woman spent several hours at the shop having Mother’s Day drinks. Just after 11 pm, she recalled, the woman’s relatives who were part of the celebration indicated that they were leaving but Joseph remained. At that time, she said the woman was fast asleep but she woke her up.
She related that the woman woke up and assured her that she was fit enough to make the walk to her Swan (located on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway) home unaided. As she walked out to the roadway, Pierre recalled that a man named `Joe’ started troubling the woman. She said she hollered at the man and he left on foot in the opposite direction. She then went back to her home.
The following morning when she had finished filling a bucket of water she saw something on the landing in front of her shop and when she shone her torchlight in that direction she saw it was Joseph.
She said that she began shaking the woman and called her name repeatedly but got no response.
Pierre said she did not notice any marks on the body but the woman’s pants and underwear were pulled down below her bottom.
From the inception the woman’s relatives expressed the belief that she had been murdered. While they had accepted that there were no marks on the body they opined that she could have been suffocated.
They had also expressed surprise that the woman’s body was clean; that there was no sand on it expect for her back.
When Stabroek News visited the home, her son was adamant that there was more to his mother’s death. A sombre looking Adolph Joseph said that the police need to do a more thorough investigation. “I still wan know how they saying she leave to go home and she turned up right there dead.”
Joseph said that he knows Joe from seeing him around the area and was of the view that the man may have had something to do with his mother’s death. Joseph told Stabroek News who he suspected had played a hand in his mother’s death but he could not gave a motive as to why anyone would want her dead.
He said that the police should have paid more attention to the case even if there were no marks of violence on the body.
Adolph said that persons in the area related to him that they heard screams shortly before Joseph was found, but no one made any attempt to venture outside to see what was happening.
He said that when he saw the post-mortem results he was a little surprised. He said that he still wants the police to do some investigations just in case there is something more to it. At the time of his mother’s death he was working in the “bush.”
He said the news shocked him and was particularly painful as he had not seen her for seven months. He was expected back home next month. But instead of seeing his mother alive he came and met her unresponsive body.
Meanwhile the shop owner told this newspaper that she had accepted the police findings while acknowledging that she never knew the woman had pressure issues. The two had been friends for many years. She expressed the view that the woman returned to the shop to “relieve herself” and while in the process of doing so, she died.
“Probably the woman was in the process of urinating. That could explain why her underwear and pants were pulled down,” Pierre said, adding that she has accepted that there was no foul play involved in the death of her friend.
