Missing bridesmaid’s body discovered in trench with throat slit

Apr 20, 2016 News

Mere days after leaving home to collect a package coming from her son’s father in Mahdia,

Simone Hackett (inset) Undertakers remove the body in the presence of curious onlookers.

23-year-old Simone Hackett’s partially decomposed body was yesterday discovered in a trench parallel to the University of Guyana Road, at Fourth Field, Cummings Lodge.
The discovery was a grim confirmation of her relatives’ worst fears, after the woman went missing on Saturday night.
Hackett’s body was found by two schoolboys who were passing by the area and were overwhelmed by a putrid stench. Curiosity got the better of them and upon checking the corner of the trench they made the gruesome discovery.
Her body bore marks of violence, indicating a clear case of foul play.
According to reports, Hackett’s throat was slit and there were what appeared to be two stab wounds to the back and neck.
She was clad in the same outfit she had left home with and her jewellery was intact, leading relatives to speculate even more that robbery was not the motive, but that it was cold-blooded murder.
Commander of the police ‘C’ Division Marlon Chapman told this newspaper that the case is being treated strictly as a murder.
It is suspected that Hackett was killed elsewhere and her killer(s) dumped the body in the location that it was discovered.
Investigators are now trying to locate one of the dead woman’s male former acquaintances, in the hope of obtaining some vital information surrounding her death.
Kaieteur News had reported that the now dead Hackett was missing since Saturday night. She had left her ‘C’ Field, Sophia home between 20:00 and 20:30 hrs to collect a package sent from Mahdia by her “child-father”. According to the woman’s mother, she had received a phone call from her “child-father” at around 18:00h, instructing her to meet with one “Dexter”, an individual who was supposedly bringing the package from Mahdia.

The woman’s distraught stepmother collapsed at the scene and had to be revived.

Relatives told Kaieteur News that she left to meet “Dexter” at the Mahdia Bus Park, but the meeting place changed and instead she went to the Railway Embankment at UG Road. They last heard from her while she was waiting there.
Hackett’s mother had said that she last received a call from her daughter at 22:10 hrs, but her daughter wasn’t saying anything and she heard background noises as though she was in a moving vehicle.
Hours later after she did not return home, relatives tried calling her cell phone continually, but kept getting voicemail.
Early Sunday morning, relatives went to the Turkeyen Police Station and lodged a report. They said that the Officer in charge after taking their report immediately sent out an all station message.
The search continued until yesterday when the discovery was made.
Upon arrival at the scene where the body was found, family members became hysterical and wails of anger filled the air.
Some of the dead woman’s relatives could be heard saying, “Is he do it! He gon pay for this!” These statements were allegedly in reference to the father of the dead woman’s toddler son. The woman’s stepmother collapsed at the scene and had to be revived; another relative made a desperate attempt to get to the body and had to be restrained by a police rank.
Kaieteur News understands that as recently as one week ago, Hackett’s “child-father”, who is reportedly in Mahdia, had issued threats of killing her over custody of their son who recently turned three years old.
Relatives of the murdered woman also stated the man’s mother and sister knew of the threats, and they were also alleged to have issued threats to Hackett.
Kaieteur News understands that investigators at Turkeyen had contacted their counterparts at Mahdia on Sunday, with a view to locating Hackett’s child father, after she went missing.
According to reports, the police at Mahdia quickly detained the man and questioned him, but he reportedly denied knowing about her whereabouts.
He reportedly gave all assurances that he wouldn’t do anything to harm Simone Hackett, claiming that the last contact he had with her was at 18:00 hrs on Saturday, and that the bearer of the package was a friend he knew from a previous job in the gold mines.
He stated that the friend, “Dexter”, hails from Pomeroon, Essequibo, and that after he called Hackett to pick up the package, he tried calling “Dexter”, but the individual’s cell phone was turned off.
Police subsequently released him, as Hackett had not been officially missing for more than 72 hours.
The now dead woman was scheduled to be the maid of honour at her sister’s wedding on Sunday. The wedding went on nevertheless, but under a cloud of despair and uncertainty.
Yesterday Hackett’s distraught father Gerald Hackett lamented the fact that he had just “given away” one of his daughters and now he will be burying another.
“I care fuh me children. I always say let they bury me before I bury them. Was a wedding fuss, is a dead now,” he cried.
He too believes that his daughter’s child-father could shed some light on how she died.
“Is he caused her to go out to pick up the package, so I think the police need to look at the child-father; that’s my take on it,” Gerald Hackett told members of the media.