(Jamaica Observer) Vanessa Wint’s death in the New Horizon Adult Correctional Centre on Wednesday night is a tragic end to the life of a teenager tormented by fear that an adult male who molested her would kill her parents if she told them about the heinous crime.
Sixteen-year-old Vanessa was found hanging in a section of the remand centre with a sheet around her neck by correctional staff who were doing their usual rounds. They believe she committed suicide.
On Thursday, her uncle Javette Nixon insisted that the country’s justice and correctional systems are ultimately responsible for Vanessa’s death and her relatives want to head off any attempt to cover any possible misdeeds on the part of the correctional authorities.
“We would like a full investigation into what led to her death. A clear path to justice must be created and the persons responsible for her death be held accountable. There must be no cover-up,” Nixon told the Jamaica Observer.
He said that Vanessa had committed no crime, although she repeatedly ran away from home out of fear for the safety of her parents and informed counsellors that she was molested by an adult male who lived in the same apartment complex where she resided and who threatened to kill her parents if she told anyone about her ordeal.
“Her mother sought counselling and tried to get her in a special school for children with behavioural problems. She was trying to open up and told counsellors that a man who lived in the apartment complex was molesting her and threatened to kill her parents and that she ran away because she did not want harm to come to them,” Nixon said.
The accused child molester has never been interrogated or arrested by the authorities.
Last night, Vanessa’s mother Simone Wint corroborated her brother’s statements and said her only daughter was only able to start talking about the molestation this summer, three years after her ordeal.
“She said she was tired of keeping it inside, but she also said she was afraid to trust people,” Simone Wint said. “I told her that I would be a tower of strength for her, that I would be here for her.”
Vanessa first fled from her home in 2009 and was picked up by the police, then taken before the Family Court where a judge ordered that she be committed to State care for three years. She was locked up inside the ill-fated Armadale home in St Ann where she managed to survive a deadly fire which killed seven female wards of the State that same year.
She was then transferred to the Stony Hill Girls Home until the three years had been completed.
