KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion Three de­tec­tives prob­ing the mur­der of sev­en-year-old McKen­zie Hope Rechi­er were ex­pect­ed to con­duct their first in­ter­view with her sus­pect­ed killer last evening.
The 25-year-old rel­a­tive re­mained in cus­tody at the San­ta Flo­ra Po­lice Sta­tion last night, where she has been since her ar­rest on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. De­spite re­ports of men­tal prob­lems, of­fi­cers said her be­hav­iour ap­peared nor­mal.

Mean­while, un­der­tak­ers trans­ferred McKen­zie’s body from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day. It will un­der­go COVID-19 test­ing and once neg­a­tive, a foren­sic pathol­o­gist may per­form an au­top­sy to­mor­row.

Once de­tec­tives re­ceive the re­port, they will in­ter­view the sus­pect again be­fore com­pil­ing a re­port to sub­mit to se­nior of­fi­cers and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

McKen­zie was stran­gled at her Pa­lo Seco home on Fri­day. The sus­pect then called a 40-year-old male friend from La Brea to take her to the gro­cery.

She left around 4 pm and lat­er asked the friend to take her to Clax­ton Bay to see Imam Yasin at the Pranz Gar­dens Masjid. They ar­rived around 10.20 pm, where she ate soup and ice cream be­fore she al­leged­ly con­fessed to Imam Yasin that she stran­gled McKen­zie, who be­came un­re­spon­sive.

Imam Yasin took the sus­pect back to the shack around 12.30 am Sat­ur­day. In­side, he saw McKen­zie’s frail corpse cov­ered with a cur­tain. Imam Yasin con­tact­ed the po­lice, who re­spond­ed and con­firmed see­ing McKen­zie ly­ing on a dirty mat­tress, wear­ing her py­ja­mas. They ob­served a red­dish mark on her neck and her face swollen.

McKen­zie’s death came three weeks af­ter the sus­pect al­leged­ly con­fid­ed in a neigh­bour that she was frus­trat­ed with her life and planned to kill McKen­zie and her­self.

Michelle Alexan­der, who lives next door, said she con­tact­ed the po­lice and oth­er of­fi­cials seek­ing help, but no one re­spond­ed. The sus­pect, an un­em­ployed sin­gle moth­er, com­plained that she was fed up with be­ing used by peo­ple and be­gan be­hav­ing and dress­ing dif­fer­ent­ly.

McKen­zie’s grand­moth­er, Bren­da Per­sad, al­so said the sus­pect be­came de­pressed af­ter her two-month-old ba­by died from a bronchial in­fec­tion in 2016. How­ev­er, Bren­da said it was no ex­cuse for mur­der.