The girl in the bathroom

Jul 23, 2017 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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At first glance, it appeared like a clear case of suicide. But some detectives began to dig deeper, and unearthed a sordid tale of murder close to home…

By Michael Jordan

Most God-fearing, law-abiding folk in Linden think they know who killed Felicity Holder in 1997. They say they know who raped her and tried to make it look like she had hanged herself. They will even tell you who they believe the killer is. The police think they know him, too. But they can’t lay a finger on him.
Eleven-year-old Felicity was the eldest of three children who were from the Corentyne. However, around 1995, Felicity’s mother sent her eldest child to stay with a great-aunt and the woman’s reputed husband at Amelia’s Ward, Linden. She attended Kara Kara Primary and was due to write the Secondary School Entrance Examinations in April.
Felicity’s mother said that she never dreamed that anything bad would happen to her daughter in Linden. But trouble came on February 27, 1997, when Felicity and her great-aunt’s reputed husband, 58-year-old Oscar Lamazon, were alone at home.
Lamazon’s reputed wife had gone to visit a friend three houses away.
Lamazon was reportedly doing some work in a poultry pen in the yard, while Felicity was in the house.
Lamazon, a staunch Seventh Day Adventist, claims that during the evening, he attempted to enter the house, but found both doors locked.
When his reputed wife returned some time later, Lamazon reportedly forced a window open and entered the premises. He tried to locate Felicity but failed to find her immediately. His search eventually led him to the bathroom, and this is where he found the little girl.
One end of a towel was knotted around her throat. The other end was tied to a metal towel-rack, which was nailed to one of the bathroom walls.
It is alleged that Mr. Lamazon attempted to revive the apparently lifeless girl. When this failed, he took Felicity to the Mackenzie Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The first newspaper reports on Felicity’s death suggested that the schoolgirl had killed herself. But two days later, forensic pathologist Dr. Edward Simon, performed an autopsy that revealed the horrible truth about Felicity’s death. The schoolgirl had not hanged herself after all. Someone had strangled Felicity with their bare hands.
So intense was the attack that imprints of the killer’s fingernails were left on the child’s throat. There were also scratches on her back. She had also been sexually assaulted.
The pathologist took samples from the victim’s privates and from under her fingernails. He hoped that the samples, once tested overseas, would reveal the DNA of Felicity’s killer, even though, back then, DNA evidence was not accepted in Guyana’s courts.
There were some troubling questions about the case.
Was it possible that a stranger had sneaked into the Lamazon house, raped and strangled Felicity Holder before fleeing unnoticed?
And if someone had, why had they taken the risk of being caught by lingering at the murder scene to stage the suicide?
Detectives were convinced that Felicity’s killer was no stranger.
They turned their attention to Oscar Lamazon, who had claimed to have found the schoolgirl’s body hanging in his bathroom.
Shortly after the autopsy, Lamazon was taken into custody.
They also grilled his reputed wife and took a statement from her.
A few days later, Oscar Lamazon was charged with Felicity Holder’s murder.
Two years after she was murdered, a jury found Lamazon guilty of killing the 11-year-old. He was sentenced to death.
In an unusual move, the trial judge read a statement, which police had taken from a woman, who said that Felicity had complained that she had been sexually assaulted.
But Oscar Lamazon’s fate was far from sealed.
From his cell in the Georgetown Prison, Lamazon appealed his sentence.
He was granted a retrial, and, on January 20, 2004, Justice Jainarayan Singh had the murder conviction overturned. Lamazon was a free man.
In Justice Singh’s opinion, the prosecution had failed to make out a case against the accused.
He felt that the prosecution had not presented an iota of evidence to contradict Lamazon’s statement about events that transpired on the day that Holder was murdered.
The judge noted that there was no evidence that the accused had entered the house while his reputed wife was out.
He also pointed out that the statement given by Lamazon’s reputed wife did not contradict that of the accused.
According to Justice Singh, there was a distinct possibility that the accused had committed the act of murder. But he said that it would have taken “a brave man” to have murdered his reputed wife’s niece while his spouse was three houses away.
And he observed that other females had lived with Lamazon and his wife, and none had complained of being sexually assaulted.
To crown it all, although sperm samples had been taken during the investigation, the defence had presented no forensic evidence to show that the accused had sex with the victim.
So what had become of the DNA samples that forensic pathologist Dr, Edward Simon had taken?
A few days after Lamazon’s acquittal, Dr. Simon revealed the shocking fate of his precious samples.
Dr. Simon recalled that he had sealed the samples and turned them over to the police. The intention was that the specimens would be sent for DNA testing in Dade County Forensic Laboratory in Miami, Florida.
But, when time passed and he received no feedback from the police about DNA results, Dr, Simon began to ask questions of his own.
It was then that he learnt that the samples had never left Guyana after all.
“Some senior police official said that ‘Guyana poor and we don’t have the money to waste on that type of thing.
“No specimens were sent to any laboratory, so we could not have the DNA evidence to present in court.
“Through DNA testing, we would have been able to say who killed her (Felicity Holder).
So, who really killed 11-year-old Felicity Holder back in 1997?
If she was slain by an intruder, how was he able to enter the home and leave un-noticed? And why did he go to such pains to stage the ‘suicide?’
Like I said before, the good people of Linden think they know Felicity’s killer. The police think they know too.
But they can’t lay a finger on him.

 

If you have any further information on this or any other case, please contact us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown office. We can also be reached on telephone numbers 22-58458, 22-58465, 22-58473 or 22-58491. You need not disclose your identity. You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address: mjdragon@hotmail.com

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