Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Near­ly a month af­ter 41-year-old Iyana Cas­tana­da col­lapsed and died af­ter drink­ing a cup of tea, an au­top­sy has still not been con­duct­ed.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the mat­ter has been clas­si­fied as a foren­sic case, as foul play is sus­pect­ed. How­ev­er, up to yes­ter­day, po­lice were still await­ing the ar­rival of a pathol­o­gist from Trinidad to per­form the au­top­sy and con­firm the cause of death.

Cas­tana­da died on the night of Fri­day, April 11, at Top Hill, Ma­son Hall. 

A 36-year-old male friend told po­lice she be­gan com­plain­ing of bel­ly pains short­ly af­ter drink­ing a cup of moringa tea around 11:30 p.m. She col­lapsed and died soon af­ter.

A woman close to Cas­tana­da of­fered a dif­fer­ent ver­sion of events. 

She claimed Cas­tana­da had spent the day cook­ing and, with­out cool­ing down, went to bathe in an out­door pool while lim­ing. When she be­gan shiv­er­ing and feel­ing un­well, she was re­port­ed­ly giv­en tea to help.

Doc­tors at the hos­pi­tal lat­er re­ferred the case to po­lice due to con­cerns raised dur­ing their as­sess­ment. 

A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene and or­dered the body re­moved to the Scar­bor­ough Mor­tu­ary around 2:00 a.m. the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.