Cause of death not determined

Apr 01, 2010 News

-post mortem inconclusive

A post mortem examination on the body of 14-year-old, Sangeeta Persaud, yesterday failed to confirm the cause of her death.
Police in a statement said that the post mortem results were inconclusive, giving rise to further speculation over what caused her sudden demise.
Persaud, of Canal Number Two Polder, West Coast Demerara, died on Sunday, hours after she began acting in a strange manner.
This prompted her mother to solicit the help of the pastor of a church in the community to ‘beat out the spirits’ she believed had possessed her daughter.
The move led to residents expressing their anger at the treatment meted out to the teenager.
According to the residents the child should have been taken to the hospital at the first signs of her condition.
Instead, the child went through nine hours of exorcism and it was only after that failed that she was taken to the West Demerara Regional Hospital.
But by then her condition had deteriorated beyond medical intervention.
The child’s grandmother had told this newspaper that she had never suffered from any similar illness.
Chitranie Chaitu, who has been caring for her since she was nine years old, told Kaieteur News that the Kawall Primary School student was alive and well up to about 08:00 hours on Sunday.
It was only after she drank a cup of tea that signs that something terrible was about to happen. “Me sit down pon de bed and de gal come and grab me. Me thought was joke she ah mek. But me see she eye ah roll up and she ah juck up did whole house,” Chaitu recalled.
She began rubbing the child with Limacol, hoping to revive her but the effort failed.
Chaitu then questioned the child but the answers she received were inconclusive.
“Me ask she if she belly hurt; she say no. You back ah hurt, she say no. Me ask she wha wrang with you Sheena? She drink li’l more of the tea and she start again. She had ah twist up and she ah holler like if something ah frighten you.
“She face start get dark and she turn up she eye,” Chaitu told Kaieteur News.
She said that she eventually contacted the child’s mother, suggesting that the teenager might have contracted a ‘spirit’.
A few minutes later the teenager’s mother arrived, followed shortly after by a senior member of a Christian church in the area.
“As soon as he come, he start fuh holler, ‘Get out! Get out!’ But Sheena de done helpless already. Dem ah squeeze she and so like dem ah tek out jumbie from she. ‘Get out! Who send you?’ But de pickney can’t talk’,” Chaitu explained.
All of this took up to about 11:00 hours.
But instead of taking the child to the hospital, Persaud was lifted into a car and taken to the church nearby.
According to her grandmother the child was kept there until 17:00 hours while brothers and sisters from the church with the blessings of the teenager’s mother continued their exorcism.
Persaud subsequently died around 22:00 hours on Sunday. Residents believe that the police should take a more active position in terms of their investigation.
But with the results of the post mortem examination proving inconclusive, coupled with the fact that there are no reports of marks of violence on the child’s body, there is little left for the police to work with.
However, police have indicated that they will be taking statements from the persons involved with a view to compiling a report which will then be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice.

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