SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A man who has re­port­ed­ly gone in­to hid­ing af­ter the mur­der of 12-year-old Mari­ah Seenath, is open­ly deny­ing any con­nec­tion to her death.

Speak­ing via a Face­book Live yes­ter­day, the man, who iden­ti­fied him­self as Bam­bi, said Seenath’s rel­a­tives and oth­er peo­ple were point­ing the fin­ger at him, but he is in­no­cent.

He said he want­ed to “clear the air” and “clear my name.”

He claimed that on Fri­day night, af­ter at­tend­ing a crick­et match and lim­ing at a bar, he could not get trans­port to his home, so he went to Mari­ah’s fa­ther’s home in Friend­ship Vil­lage, Ste Madeleine. He said Mari­ah’s fa­ther, Mar­lon Seenath, did not ap­pear to be home be­cause he called out to him but got no re­sponse. Mari­ah had spent that night at her grand­moth­er’s home. Bam­bi said he fell asleep in the ham­mock, and lat­er that morn­ing Seenath re­turned home. He claimed Seenath had a vi­o­lent ver­bal clash with his neigh­bour, and he (Bam­bi) quelled the dis­tur­bance be­fore leav­ing some­time af­ter 6 am.

Mari­ah, ac­cord­ing to her grand­moth­er, left short­ly af­ter 7 am on Sat­ur­day to re­turn to her home.

“I am hear­ing all kind of thing, that peo­ple see me wak­ing with the child...I nev­er even meet up that child,” he claimed. Say­ing that he has a 14-year-old daugh­ter, the man said, “I would not like that to hap­pen to my daugh­ter, so I will not do that to any­body.”

How­ev­er, he said he was con­cerned that at­tempts were be­ing made to pin Mari­ah’s mur­der on him, which is why he has been “avoid­ing” the po­lice. “Every­body wants jus­tice for this child. Yes, they want jus­tice, but jus­tice is not just putting the blame on any­body. Jus­tice is find­ing the per­son who do it.”

He urged the po­lice to car­ry out prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions and find the per­son who had a mo­tive to kill Mari­ah.

How­ev­er, a se­nior homi­cide of­fi­cer said they had no sus­pects or mo­tives at this time in con­nec­tion with the girl’s mur­der. Mari­ah, who would have cel­e­brat­ed her 13th birth­day on No­vem­ber 1, was found dead by a vil­lager about five feet off a track in a bushy area near the Friend­ship Vil­lage Recre­ation Ground around 12.50 pm on Sep­tem­ber 20. She of­ten used the track to get to and from her fa­ther’s and grand­moth­er’s homes.

An au­top­sy re­vealed she died from blunt force in­juries to her head. Mari­ah was a Form Three stu­dent at San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School and a mem­ber of the school’s foot­ball team and dra­ma club.

Her fu­ner­al will be held to­day from 8 am. Mari­ah’s body will be tak­en to her Friend­ship Vil­lage home­town, then to the St John’s Open Bible Church, fol­lowed by a cre­ma­tion at the Shore of Peace, Mos­qui­to Creek, South Oropouche.

Yes­ter­day, class­mates and teach­ers at the San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary paid trib­ute to Mari­ah with a poster of her on the wall dec­o­rat­ed with bal­loons.