Po­lice say they are close to com­plet­ing the Han­nah Mathu­ra case, as they, to­geth­er with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, are fi­nal­is­ing what ev­i­dence is need­ed to prove be­yond a rea­son­able doubt that she was mur­dered.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that while the au­top­sy con­duct­ed on Mathu­ra’s re­mains re­vealed she was shot in the head, the ab­sence of tis­sue makes prov­ing that was her cause of death dif­fi­cult.

Po­lice said they were now hav­ing “le­gal and fac­tu­al con­sul­ta­tions” on how best to pro­ceed.

Mathu­ra’s skele­tal re­mains were found at her Bu­tu Road, Val­sayn home on March 12 and two days lat­er, an au­top­sy con­clud­ed she died from gun­shot wounds to the head.

Po­lice be­lieve she had been buried in the back­yard of her home sev­en years ago in 2017. Of­fi­cers sus­pect she was 18 at the time.

Han­nah’s par­ents were held by in­ves­ti­ga­tors on March 14 but re­leased on March 20 with­out any charges be­ing laid.

In April, Han­nah’s sib­lings, through their at­tor­neys San­jiv Bood­hu and Sasha Paul Singh, said the fam­i­ly did not make plans for any fi­nal rites as they had not been of­fi­cial­ly in­formed by po­lice that the re­mains were that of their sib­ling.

There has been no word on when a fi­nal send-off will be held for Mathu­ra, as her re­mains are still at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

Po­lice said they al­so did not have Han­nah’s DNA to con­clu­sive­ly de­ter­mine that the re­mains found were, in fact, hers. How­ev­er, with a birth cer­tifi­cate and no death cer­tifi­cate, po­lice said Han­nah re­mains un­ac­count­ed for. But of­fi­cers said af­ter DNA tests were done on the re­mains and a match was found with the par­ents, it was “rea­son­able” to ac­cept that the skele­tal re­mains were those of Han­nah.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Paul Singh said she had no re­cent con­tact with the fam­i­ly and could not say whether po­lice had of­fi­cial­ly in­formed them of any­thing. Po­lice said they had not con­tact­ed the Mathu­ra fam­i­ly and would on­ly hand over the re­mains at the end of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which they said is near­ing an end.

Mean­while, Guardian Me­dia re­turned to the fam­i­ly’s Bu­tu Road home yes­ter­day and there seemed to be a buzz of ac­tiv­i­ty at the house.

Three cars were parked in the dri­ve­way just af­ter 11 am. Short­ly af­ter, two women in a white Kia Rio left as an­oth­er woman, who ap­peared to be old­er than the pair, came out­side for a mo­ment be­fore hur­ried­ly re­treat­ing in­side when she re­alised the me­dia was present.

Af­ter Han­nah’s re­mains were found, the fam­i­ly’s Val­sayn house ap­peared to have been va­cat­ed by the oc­cu­pants.