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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Second suspect in Shannon murder case released

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Po­lice have re­leased the two men they deemed "per­sons of in­ter­est" in the death of Shan­non Ban­field, how­ev­er, they are not void of a sus­pect, rather they are try­ing to avoid a me­dia cir­cus ham­per­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and have vowed si­lence as the mat­ter pro­gress­es.

Po­lice sources close to the case said the in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to the video footage should not have been pub­lished by the me­dia as that may have ham­pered their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, de­spite it be­ing cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence. Sources said there is an­oth­er sus­pect and po­lice are work­ing dili­gent­ly and silent­ly as they gath­er the nec­es­sary ev­i­dence need­ed not on­ly to ar­rest but to charge and con­vict the sus­pect.

Ban­field was found be­neath box­es in the store­room at IAM and Com­pa­ny on Char­lotte Street on De­cem­ber 8, three days af­ter she went miss­ing. Since then the store has been closed and the 12 em­ploy­ees rig­or­ous­ly ques­tioned by Homi­cide de­tec­tives.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day own­er of IAM Ish­mael Ali said his em­ploy­ees re­ceived coun­selling and were al­so as­sist­ing the po­lice with in­ves­ti­ga­tions. On his re­lease from the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day, Dale Seecha­ran said the or­deal of him be­ing la­belled a sus­pect had "ru­ined his life" and he was look­ing for­ward to spend­ing time with fam­i­ly. An­oth­er man of in­ter­est, Matthew Ma­haraj, who was re­leased on De­cem­ber 10 made a sim­i­lar com­ment say­ing he was brand­ed in the pub­lic eye and ques­tioned how he is go­ing to move on.

On his re­lease Seecha­ran said: "I am just re­lieved that this is over and I have noth­ing to do with this and I just want to thank my lawyer for every­thing. I am just feel­ing hap­py just to go home with my fam­i­ly.

Asked how he felt giv­en that he was ar­rest­ed twice fol­low­ing Ban­field's mur­der, he said: "I don't know how to de­scribe it, I just feel like my life take a turn for the worse and I just want to get back on to life. I have to start all over my life is ru­ined."

Seecha­ran who was re­leased in­to the cus­tody of his at­tor­ney, Lar­ry Williams, was tak­en to his St He­le­na home by his at­tor­ney. When asked if he had any­thing to say con­cern­ing his clients time in po­lice cus­tody Williams said, "Not one word. God is the boss".

When asked what were his plans now that he is a free man, Seecha­ran said: "I can't say".

Ban­field, of Mc Carthy Street, Can­taro Vil­lage, San­ta Cruz, was last seen leav­ing her work­place–RBL's In­de­pen­dence Square branch–around 4 pm on De­cem­ber 5. In a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with her moth­er Sher­ry-Ann Lopez around that time, Ban­field said she was go­ing to pur­chase items at the same store (IAM) she was even­tu­al­ly found in. Ban­field's body was dis­cov­ered hid­den un­der some box­es in the com­pa­ny's third floor store­room around 1.30 pm on De­cem­ber 8 by em­ploy­ees who were search­ing for the source of a strong de­com­pos­ing scent which they be­lieve was a dead rat. Her au­top­sy stat­ed she had been smoth­ered and po­lice re­cov­ered what they be­lieved to be a mur­der weapon, a blood­ied tow­el, near where she was found.


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