…autopsy: hit to head, strangled, then dumped into Hope Canal

BY Shauna Jemmott

PATHOLOGIST Dr. Nehul Singh has conducted an autopsy on the body of the late 14-year-old Malika Hamilton and found she was brutally bludgeoned to her head, strangled, and dumped alive in the Hope Canal between Monday afternoon and Tuesday.The second year Hope Secondary School student died of ‘asphyxiation’, a condition of severe deficient supply of oxygen to the body as a result of abnormal breathing. An example of asphyxia is choking.

The autopsy report also revealed that before Hamilton was thrown into the Hope Canal while still alive, she suffered ‘blunt trauma to head’ and ‘compression injury to neck’, her cousin Dr. Saska Sertima told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday.

The ‘Miss African Calabash 2014’ beauty queen had left her home at Lot 11 Two Friends Village, Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara late on Monday, but never returned. Her body was fished out of the Hope Canal the following day, where it was spotted by the canal’s ranger.

Relatives of the dead teenager are calling for swift justice as police investigations continue. They said a man suspected to be part of the investigation has disappeared, and there is no photograph available to police.

Hamilton’s mother, Atesha Cambridge, also said that her daughter’s body appeared ‘fresh’, as if she had just died at the time she was pulled from the canal. The family said they observed that Hamilton’s fingers were white and mud was on her skin, which indicated that she was not long thrown overboard.

The family said one of the same men in whose company she was reportedly last seen was observed walking in the direction of Hope when the teenager’s grandmother, Dorrel Cambridge, enquired of her whereabouts from him on the morning when the search for the missing girl began.

“Dem seh she bin a bathe a trench, but me seh Malika doesn’t go and bathe a trench,” the woman told the press.

Relatives and friends said the teenager did not know how to swim.
“Me start ask people, and then me stop wan boy name Satan, and he seh ‘Malika and all ahwe bin a bathe a trench deh (not far from her home) and Malika lef and seh she ah go ah she grandmother’ (at Hope, two villages away).

“Me seh ‘wait, Malika doesn’t lef so! How Malika go lef hey, pass we hey (her home)…. How she go bathe a ‘big bridge’ and pass hey wid she wet skin and go at she grandmother at Hope?”

The Guyana Chronicle understands that the man had told another woman that Hamilton had left for Hope with his slippers, but relatives said no slippers were found near the teen’s body; and they have observed the man wearing the same slippers he said she had borrowed, even on the day she was discovered dead.

On Wednesday, however, the ranger who found the teen’s body the day before, also a boat operator, said he had traversed the canal several times, transporting workers on the infrastructural project, but did not notice her body earlier. It was not until he was making his third trip that he spotted something black in the canal. The man said because the canal is clean, he quickly observes anything strange in it.

He later returned to the area after he was informed that Hamilton was missing, and after spinning the boat, the waves shifted the body, causing him to recognize her clothing.
The ranger also said that on Monday he transported Malika and three men, including ‘Satan’, across the canal from Douch Four to Hope, at about 13:00h. That was the last reported time that Hamilton was seen alive. Her body was on Tuesday pulled from the canal, around the ‘Skinny Dam’ bridge at ‘Star-apple Tree’ area, where men go to catch birds.

Meanwhile, family members of the dead girl are upset that Lyken Funeral Home did not store her body properly, resulting in the body being bloated and starting to decay. Her mother said she is deeply hurt and has decided to bury her daughter this Sunday, as a result.

“They didn’t put her properly! She start spoil. She cannot keep anymore long. Is best she go and bury early. They need to do their work and job more properly. It’s hard to open my child properly like that. I give them my child properly. When me child come out (the water) me child was fresh fresh,” the distraught woman told the Guyana Chronicle.

Malika Hamilton, whose Facebook name is Iheart Malika, had, a few months ago, posted on her page, “If love only exist in my dreams, don’t wake me up!!!!!!”