Derek Achong

A sec­ond au­top­sy has been or­dered on the body of bank clerk Shan­non Ban­field, af­ter the first re­turned with in­con­clu­sive re­sults yes­ter­day.

Po­lice sources told the T&T Guardian that be­cause Ban­field's body was in an ad­vanced stage of de­com­po­si­tion her cause of death could not be im­me­di­ate­ly de­ter­mined by foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Hughvon Des Vi­gnes at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day. Des Vi­gnes re­port­ed­ly per­formed his ex­am­i­na­tion and took sam­ples yes­ter­day but will take some time to pro­duce his fi­nal re­port.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands the sec­ond au­top­sy was rec­om­mend­ed to in­ves­ti­ga­tors by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in or­der to bol­ster the case. The sec­ond post mortem is ex­pect­ed be per­formed next week by one of Des Vi­gnes' two col­leagues at the cen­tre - Dr Valery Alexan­drov or East­lyn Bur­ris-Mc­Don­ald.

Ban­field's rel­a­tives re­fused to re­veal the re­sults of yes­ter­day's au­top­sy to me­dia per­son­nel out­side the cen­tre yes­ter­day, as they claimed they wished to in­form oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers be­fore the news was broad­cast.

Mean­while, the two IAM Com­pa­ny Ltd em­ploy­ees who worked at the Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain ware­house where Ban­field's body was found, and were lat­er iden­ti­fied as per­sons of in­ter­est, re­mained de­tained yes­ter­day. The duo, Dale Seecha­ran and Matthew Ma­haraj, are from San Juan, po­lice said.

Ques­tions are now be­ing asked about the length of time be­tween Ban­field's dis­ap­pear­ance on Mon­day and the even­tu­al dis­cov­ery of her body on Thurs­day af­ter­noon.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, own­er of the com­pa­ny, Ish­mael Ali, ad­mit­ted that po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing Ban­field's dis­ap­pear­ance came to his store on Tues­day morn­ing seek­ing CCTV cam­era footage, but left emp­ty-hand­ed.

"They said they want­ed to check the cam­eras and the staff wasn't too sure they were po­lice. My son, who has a spe­cial pass­word for it, said to call him and he would pro­vide it but af­ter that they nev­er called back," Ali said.

How­ev­er, a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice's Pub­lic Af­fairs Unit said al­though in­ves­ti­ga­tors vis­it­ed the busi­ness three times af­ter her moth­er re­port­ed her miss­ing and re­quest­ed the CCTV footage, none was forth­com­ing un­til her body was found.

"All the oth­er busi­ness es­tab­lish­ments in the area where Ms Ban­field was last known to have been, in­clud­ing Pen­ny­wise, were ap­proached for ac­cess to their CCTV footage and this was im­me­di­ate­ly forth­com­ing," the re­lease said, adding strict pro­to­col was fol­lowed in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Con­tact­ed to re­spond, Ali main­tained he co-op­er­at­ed with the po­lice and was on­ly con­tact­ed a sec­ond time on Thurs­day when Ban­field's body was found.

"Short­ly af­ter I got the news I start to call the po­lice in Port-of-Spain and Se­nior Supt Box­hill came to my of­fice to look at the mon­i­tors. They came around 1 pm and left af­ter 7 pm. We did not de­ny them any­thing. I co-op­er­ate with the po­lice all the time," Ali said.

"We don't be at that store at all, so it is on­ly staff. They (the po­lice) could have find out who I am and come and see me and I would have helped in any way I can."

Ban­field, of Mc Carthy Street, Can­taro Vil­lage, San­ta Cruz, was last seen leav­ing her work place–RBL's In­de­pen­dence Square branch–around 4 pm on Mon­day.

In a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with her moth­er Sher­ry-Ann Lopez around that time, Ban­field had said she was leav­ing work to pur­chase items at the same store (IAM) she was even­tu­al­ly found in. Lopez said she would nor­mal­ly drop off and pick up her daugh­ter from work, but she (Ban­field) de­cid­ed to trav­el on Mon­day.

Ban­field's body was dis­cov­ered hid­den un­der some box­es in com­pa­ny's third floor store­room around 1.30 pm on Thurs­day by em­ploy­ees who were search­ing for the source of a strong de­com­pos­ing scent which they be­lieve was a dead rat. Ban­field's purse and shop­ping bags were found near to her body.

Ali yes­ter­day re­vealed that his two em­ploy­ees turned sus­pects were re­cent­ly hired by his com­pa­ny.

"It is 50 years we in busi­ness. All of our em­ploy­ees have been work­ing 19 years and 26 years, we don't re­al­ly have too much new em­ploy­ees like those two," he said.

While he said the in­ci­dent was very wor­ry­ing, Ali said he would be at­tempt­ing to re­open the busi­ness by next week to take ad­van­tage of Christ­mas shop­pers.

"Its is Christ­mas time and busi­ness has been rough so we want to open back. But the place must be fu­mi­gat­ed first and the em­ploy­ees have to get some coun­sel­ing be­cause they are all shak­en up," Ali said.

Ali al­so dis­missed links be­ing made on so­cial me­dia be­tween Ban­field's death and that of for­mer em­ploy­ee Shenese Samuel, who dis­ap­peared af­ter she left her Lopinot home on Jan­u­ary 24 last year for a job in­ter­view in Port-of-Spain. Ali not­ed that Samuel had been laid off by the com­pa­ny over an in­ci­dent sev­er­al months be­fore her dis­ap­pear­ance.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Harikr­ishen Baldeo and Se­nior Supt Sais­nar­ine Ma­habir of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.