Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Twelve-year-old Mari­ah Seenath was beat­en to death, an au­top­sy has con­firmed.

Po­lice said the au­top­sy, per­formed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre yes­ter­day, re­vealed she died from blunt force trau­ma to her head.

Seenath, a Form Three stu­dent at San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School, was found dead by a res­i­dent around 12.50 pm on Sat­ur­day, about five feet in the bush­es off a track near the recre­ation ground in her neigh­bour­hood at Friend­ship Vil­lage, Ste Madeleine.

Seenath had spent the night at her grand­moth­er’s home and re­turned home short­ly af­ter 7 am. She put her school uni­form to soak and took a pho­to­graph of her fa­ther sleep­ing in the ham­mock be­fore she left home. It is be­lieved she was head­ing back to her grand­moth­er’s home when she was at­tacked and dragged in­to the bush­es. There was a bruise on her stom­ach and chest, and grass around her neck.

Her death has plunged the com­mu­ni­ty in­to sad­ness, and her fa­ther, Mar­lon Seenath, and oth­er rel­a­tives are de­mand­ing jus­tice.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with her fa­ther yes­ter­day at his moth­er’s home, short­ly af­ter he re­turned from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre. He said he viewed her body but when he left the au­top­sy had not yet been done. Seenath said he ob­served in­juries on her face.

“I no­tice she nose, it not in place and she have a bruise on she fore­head,” he lament­ed, as he buried his head in his hands and cried, adding, “I will get jus­tice for my daugh­ter.”

He said every­one was dev­as­tat­ed over her death and even her pri­ma­ry school teach­ers had reached out to them.

“She is a very lov­ing girl,” he said through tears.

Mari­ah, he said, was one of the best strik­ers on the school foot­ball team and was very am­bi­tious.

“She want­ed to be a pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller but oth­er than that, that was her side­line. She want­ed to be a bank man­ag­er and, on the side­line, play foot­ball, but she dreams shat­ter for some rea­son.”

Seenath said he doesn’t know why his daugh­ter was killed, but he will not stop un­til her killer is ap­pre­hend­ed.

“I don’t know who it is or what­so­ev­er. I will find him. I will find that per­son whoso­ev­er do it.”

In a re­lease, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ex­pressed deep sor­row over her pass­ing.

“Mari­ah will be re­mem­bered as a stu­dent whose pres­ence brought en­er­gy and warmth to those around her. She was ac­tive in school life as a foot­baller, a mem­ber of the Dra­ma Club and a val­ued class­mate and friend. Her ab­sence will be deeply felt by her class­mates, team­mates, teach­ers and all who knew her,” the min­istry said.

The min­istry joined Mari­ah’s school in mourn­ing her pass­ing and ex­tend­ed sym­pa­thies to her rel­a­tives, friends, fel­low stu­dents, teach­ers and all who are griev­ing her loss.

The min­istry not­ed that the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion will con­tin­ue to pro­vide coun­selling and sup­port to the school com­mu­ni­ty.

The fam­i­ly is prepar­ing fu­ner­al arrange­ments for this week. While rel­a­tives sus­pect two men from the area, of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions said they are not cur­rent­ly seek­ing any sus­pects, and a mo­tive has yet to be de­ter­mined.