It was a crime that shook the na­tion, leav­ing many in tears and oth­ers in a com­plete state of be­wil­der­ment.

On the af­ter­noon of Tues­day, March 28, 2006, news spread that six-year-old Sean Luke had been re­port­ed miss­ing from his Or­ange Val­ley, Cara­pichaima home.

His moth­er told po­lice she was asleep while six-year-old Sean was out­side play­ing as he was ac­cus­tomed do­ing.

But when dark­ness fell, lit­tle Sean was nowhere to be found.

Af­ter search­ing, Sean was found nude and dead in a cane­field.

There was spec­u­la­tion that he was sodomised.

An au­top­sy con­duct­ed by Pathol­o­gist Dr East­lyn Mc Don­ald Bur­ris re­vealed the lit­tle boy died in an ag­o­nis­ing man­ner - a sug­ar cane stalk had been in­sert­ed in­to the child’s rec­tum, rup­tured his in­testines and caused se­vere dam­age to his in­ter­nal or­gans. He died from in­ter­nal bleed­ing. The sug­ar­cane stalk was pushed so far in­to the child that it reached his throat.

The de­tails of the smil­ing, play­ful boy’s fi­nal mo­ments sent the na­tion in an up­roar.

Pathol­o­gist Bur­ris would lat­er say con­duct­ing the post mortem on Sean was one of the “most un­for­get­table” in her 20-year ca­reer.

But what was even just as alarm­ing as the de­tails of the child’s mur­der, were the ar­rest of two boys then ages 12 and 15.

Now al­most 15 years af­ter the grue­some crime was com­mit­ted, Sean’s moth­er, rel­a­tives and the na­tion are all yet to see the wheels of jus­tice turn.

Since the two boys were charged with the mur­der of the lit­tle Sean, the tri­al has been strug­gling to get off the ground.

It has been plagued with le­gal tech­ni­cal­i­ties and changes in at­tor­neys for both the de­fence and State.

While these are not un­com­mon in le­gal mat­ters of this na­ture, the na­tion’s hunger for an­swers re­mains in abeyance.

Over the years there have been nu­mer­ous im­prove­ments in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem but the de­lay in the time­ly com­ple­tion of mur­der cas­es is a clear in­di­ca­tion that more work is des­per­ate­ly re­quired.

Ad­vo­cates in crim­i­nal jus­tice are of­ten vo­cal about the im­pact a lengthy wait pe­ri­od for a tri­al to com­mence has on an ac­cused, how un­fair it is and how the rights of a pris­on­er are in­fringed.

While that may be the case, it is ever more woe­ful for the rel­a­tives of a vic­tim to con­tin­ue to hope for jus­tice year af­ter year, on­ly to be told about de­lay af­ter de­lay.

Sean Luke par­ents and loved ones de­serve for this tri­al to be con­duct­ed prop­er­ly, the facts - as grue­some as they are - to be ven­ti­lat­ed in court and for the en­tire mat­ter to come to a com­ple­tion.

Lit­tle Sean Luke, who would have been 21, nev­er got a chance to live, to see what his jour­ney would be.

Af­ter all that has been said and done, all lit­tle Sean de­serves now is jus­tice.