Pe­ter Christo­pher & Mark Bas­sant

Af­ter Ashan­ti Ri­ley’s killers un­suc­cess­ful­ly tried to stran­gle her with a belt, they stabbed her re­peat­ed­ly in the chest and ab­domen be­fore dis­pos­ing of her body in a San­ta Cruz riv­er.

Those were the re­sults of an au­top­sy per­formed on the 18-year-old’s body at the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre in St James yes­ter­day. It found that Ri­ley suf­fered sharp force in­juries to the chest and low­er ab­domen as well as blunt force trau­ma to the back of the left chest. This sug­gest­ed she was bru­tal­ly beat­en be­fore be­ing stabbed and left to die in a wa­ter­course off La Canoa Road, San­ta Cruz, last week. Sources fa­mil­iar with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said her killers first at­tempt­ed to stran­gle her us­ing a belt but when that did not work, they used a knife to end her life.

Ri­ley had left her home two Sun­days ago af­ter tak­ing a taxi out­side her Sun­shine Av­enue, San Juan home and her nude body was found four days lat­er in San­ta Cruz.

Family members of Ashanti Riley they light up for her , outside the family home on Lloyd Street, Sunshine Avenue, San Juan.

ANISTO ALVES

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia that a belt and a knife they be­lieve were used in her killing were re­cov­ered from two sus­pects cur­rent­ly in cus­tody. A 32-year-old taxi dri­ver, who had picked up the teenag­er, was de­tained by po­lice one day lat­er and mere hours af­ter the dis­cov­ery of Ashan­ti’s body last Thurs­day, an­oth­er man from Laven­tille Road, San Juan, was held. Af­ter elud­ing po­lice for a few days, a third sus­pect was held late Tues­day. Sources said the taxi dri­ver re­turned the PH car to the own­er the day af­ter the mur­der and told them “he had got­ten a bet­ter of­fer.”

Mean­while, Ashan­ti’s grand­moth­er was yes­ter­day still dis­turbed over the fact that no one in the com­mu­ni­ty had warned them about the dri­ver’s past be­fore Ashan­ti dis­ap­peared.

Karen Ri­ley told Guardian Me­dia this si­lence from with­in the com­mu­ni­ty be­fore her grand­daugh­ter’s pass­ing has haunt­ed her the most since they had learned of Ashan­ti’s bru­tal end.

“No­body was say­ing any­thing and that is what is both­er­ing me to know she walk from here to that cor­ner and every­one now say­ing they hear this, they hear that, they hear the oth­er, that is hurt­ing me. This is some­thing that I nev­er thought would come to my doorstop,” Ri­ley said yes­ter­day.

The fam­i­ly was not told if she was sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed be­fore she was killed.

Can­dice Ri­ley and her sis­ter Lisa Ri­ley, af­ter re­ceiv­ing the au­top­sy re­sults yes­ter­day, were ush­ered away from me­dia at­ten­tion by po­lice at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre at Fed­er­a­tion Park, St James.

They spent much of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon reg­is­ter­ing Ashan­ti’s death, so much so that they had not re­port­ed the au­top­sy re­sults to her grand­moth­er when the Guardian vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly home. She in­stead learned of the grue­some de­tails via so­cial me­dia re­posts of me­dia re­ports.

“That I would have to be bury­ing my grand­child in­stead of her bury­ing me. It’s a hard thing, it’s a hard thing for the whole fam­i­ly, and then it have fam­i­ly abroad, her moth­er broth­er and sis­ter and aunt can’t come in so they are frus­trat­ed, so it is not a nice feel­ing and right now I don’t know how to feel,” she said.

How­ev­er, while she had her own pain and opin­ions on her grand­daugh­ter’s killers, she ex­pressed even more con­cern for the state of her daugh­ter.

“I have to be strong for every­body, my daugh­ter, for my grand­daugh­ters, for every­one. It is a hard thing. But I would like her to be here for how she feel. Right now she cry­ing and tears not com­ing,” she said.

Members of the community come together for the wake of Ashanti Riley at her family home on Lloyd Street, Sunshine Avenue, San Juan.

ANISTO ALVES

She ex­plained that her daugh­ter had on­ly moved in­to the com­mu­ni­ty two months ago and this al­so was weigh­ing on her mind.

“I know deep down in­side she is hurt­ing. She fig­ure she made a mis­take by com­ing in­to this com­mu­ni­ty to live. That is how she is feel­ing now. She feel­ing like she put her child in harm’s way. But it wasn’t, she was just get­ting a bet­ter place and not know­ing,” Karen said, as she ex­pressed frus­tra­tions that none of the fam­i­ly’s new neigh­bours gave them a warn­ing con­cern­ing the po­ten­tial threat.

“Be­cause if they knew cer­tain things and they talk up, maybe the po­lice might have done, you know. These peo­ple not sup­posed to be dri­ving. We sup­posed to have some kind of thing when per­pe­tra­tors do that, they face sup­posed to be plas­ter all over Trinidad and To­ba­go. Let us know who are these mon­sters be­cause that is what they are,” she said.

Ashan­ti’s moth­er Can­dice was vis­it­ed by po­lice and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit of­fi­cials af­ter they re­turned home yes­ter­day evening.

The fu­ner­al has been set for next Mon­day.

Joshua Riley (Cousin), Candice Riley center walks with a light for her daughter Ashanti Riley, along with her other daughter outside the family home on Lloyd Street, Sunshine Avenue, San Juan.

ANISTO ALVES

Taxi dri­vers from the area have re­port­ed­ly de­cid­ed to pool funds to as­sist the fam­i­ly with the fu­ner­al ex­pens­es.

Two men are cur­rent­ly in po­lice cus­tody in con­nec­tion with Ashan­ti’s death and a third sus­pect has so far elud­ed po­lice.

In an un­re­lat­ed in­ci­dent, the au­top­sy of Krys­tal Primus-Es­pinoza, whose body was found off the East coast af­ter her crashed Toy­ota Hilux was dis­cov­ered along the beach in Ba­lan­dra, re­vealed that she died from as­phyx­i­a­tion due to drown­ing and the oth­er in­juries she sus­tained were con­sis­tent with a fall.

Primus-Es­pinoza’s gold-coloured Hilux, which she had left her St Ann’s Vil­lage home in last Wednes­day, was found the fol­low­ing day on the shore­line at a Ba­lan­dra beach, hav­ing ap­par­ent­ly gone off the road and over a 50-foot cliff. Of­fi­cers were able to im­me­di­ate­ly iden­ti­fy it was Primus’ ve­hi­cle, as her dri­ver’s per­mit and that of her hus­band, Alvon Es­pinoza, were still in the ve­hi­cle.