Cops probe slain girl’s link to ‘group’ in bizarre cemetery murder

Jan 22, 2018 News

– as victim’s dad vows to help find killers

What connection, if any, does an online group have with the still-unsolved murder of a teenage girl who was battered to death in a cemetery last December?
That’s the question that detectives are seeking answers to, as they pursue the killer or killers of 18-year-old Rainella Benfield, whose body was found in a cemetery at Triumph, East Coast Demerara on December 11, 2017.
Benfield, a receptionist who was employed with Qualfon, was apparently killed by someone who repeatedly struck her in the face with a rock. The bloodstained ‘weapon’ was left near the corpse.
The method in which she was slain has led to the conclusion that vengeance, for some possible grievance, was the motive.
“From the outset, when we look at the type of injuries sustained, and the postmortem, we realised that it (the killing) would have been meted out (because) of grievance, affair, passion, as it relates to something she may have known or heard,” Crime Chief Paul Williams told journalists at a recent press conference.
The Crime Chief also said that information had surfaced that has caused his detectives to be “looking at a group to see definitely if there is any information that we can use to pursue further investigations.”
The ‘group’ to which Williams referred reportedly comprises individuals, who first corresponded via ‘WhatsApp.
“From my understanding, the group started to meet, and then began to get bigger,” Rainella’s father, Rainsford Benfield, told Kaieteur News this week.
“For me, it seems that it moved from being a company to being a cult.”
But Mr. Benfield said that he knew nothing about the group to which his daughter belonged until after her death.
He speculates that his daughter was slain “because of something she found out, or something she may have done, or refused to do.”

Murdered: Rainella Benfield

The area where Rainella was found

According to Mr. Benfield, who saw his daughter’s body, said Rainella “practically did not have a face,” because of the ferocity of the attack.
Mr. Benfield says he’s determined that his daughter’s killers will be found.
“It will not b another unsolved case. I will go the full length (for justice) and I will not give up.”
SUSPECTS
Police have been reluctant to disclose many details about their investigations, or other theories pertaining to the case. Five individuals, including the slain girl’s fiancé, were initially detained.
Kaieteur News understands that investigators are attempting to locate a Beterveragting resident whom they consider to be “a person of interest,” in the investigation.
Rainella Benfield, of Lot 99 Canterbury Walk, Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, was reportedly last seen alive at around 18:00 hrs on Saturday, December 9.
A male friend of Rainella’s had said that that she had planned to spend the night out with a group of friends at Mahaicony. But the receptionist cancelled at the last moment, since she had to work late the following day.
On Monday, December 11, she was found dead in the Triumph cemetery.
It is suspected that she was slain the previous Saturday, since persons in the area reportedly heard someone screaming in the vicinity of the cemetery.

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