Private international investigative team reviewing Adriana Younge’s case – Dr. Dexter Todd

Jul 13, 2025 News

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Kaieteur News – A private international investigative team is actively reviewing the circumstances surrounding the death of 11-year-old Adriana Younge, attorney Dr. Dexter Todd has revealed.

Dr. Todd in an interview with Kaieteur News on Friday said that the team is currently analyzing surveillance footage, interviewing witnesses, and speaking with persons of interest connected to the case. The team’s aim is to conduct an independent, thorough investigation and compare the findings with those of the Guyana Police Force (GPF). The team is headed by a digital forensic expert from the United Kingdom.

“There’s an international investigative team which was pulled together. Because of the need to protect the identity of the investigators, they are basically walking through back a number of things and they have started. The digital forensic expert is basically analyzing now all video, because since this incident, I was able to pull all the videos. I had a separate team working on that on the ground, I would never have left that to the police,” he said.

Dr. Todd emphasized that the team is not interfering with the official investigation or witnesses but is instead focused on gathering evidence independently to verify whether the narrative presented by the police aligns with theirs. He further stated that the information gathered by the private investigative team may also serve to hold the GPF accountable should there be any misrepresentation or omission in their findings.

“We’re waiting on the police to see at some point in time, what investigation they did, because if they think that they are going to just glide over certain important aspects of this, of what transpired, they have another thing coming,” he warned.

Once the private team’s report is complete, Dr. Todd plans to submit it to both the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) with the hope that it will either confirm or prompt expansion of the police investigation.

“There was a lot of things happening on the ground, which of course can be very vital to an investigation. So, we will know whether someone is trying to concoct a different narrative or to put together a different narrative than actually what happened.  I do plan to submit that report to the police and with an aim of asking them to compare what they have done and whether they have missed anything, with an aim as well for them to expand their investigations so that it can be a lot more thorough,” Dr. Todd explained.

Regarding funding, Dr. Todd shared that while the team is not formally funded, it is being financially supported by both local and international organizations. “There are a number of organizations, which have asked to remain anonymous, that have pledged their support to the investigative team,” he disclosed.

The team has ten persons of interest on its radar, including hotel staff and some of Adriana’s relatives. Dr. Todd confirmed that new eyewitness statements continue to emerge, and the team has been able to trace the movements of certain individuals based on timestamps in surveillance footage. “They are all persons of interest. No one is ruled out here because an investigation of this magnitude, you cannot have a situation where it’s narrowed and once you narrow the investigation, you’re likely to overlook things. So, you have to keep the assessment as wide as possible, and then you eliminate as you do not find the evidence in relation to persons.”

The GPF, which had previously stated that its investigation into the death of Adriana Younge was concluded and that the case file had been submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions, has now declared that the investigation remains active. This update was provided by Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum. The original case file included an investigative report compiled by retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer Leonard McCoshen, who was hired by the government and spent a few days in Guyana before presenting his findings to the police.

Addressing the matter on an episode of the GPF’s podcast Safeguarding Our Nation, Blanhum stated, “In the interest of full transparency, the Guyana Police Force, contrary to Standard Operating Procedures, shared Adriana Younge’s autopsy report with her family’s attorney.”

In response, Dr. Todd questioned the credibility and finality of the police’s earlier conclusion. “The police crime chief indicated that the investigation is active. Now, if the investigation is active, I can only interpret that in two ways. You had a Canadian expert investigator… [he] came and reviewed this case and presented a report. Are you saying that the report presented was not a conclusive report? We don’t know. So, when I saw that the crime chief is saying that the investigation is active, I was a bit surprised because what happened to this report that this investigator came to Guyana and presented to them and what happened to the report and pronouncement the president said in relation to the conclusion of this investigator that there was excellent work done in relation to the investigation and there was excellent handling of the body and all of that. Then why is the investigation active?” he said.

Dr. Todd expressed concern that the police is yet to disclose who is leading the investigation in Guyana. “We don’t know who are the investigators in this matter in Guyana. The police continued to be silent on that. And because of that, we don’t even know who would have been the IR that we can write to, that we can communicate with to say, well, okay, there is a witness who wants to say something, nothing at all.”

From the announcement of Adriana’s disappearance, the family has expressed a lack of confidence in the GPF due to several issues, including inaccurate initial statements regarding Adriana’s whereabouts, lack of communication with the family, and initial refusal to release the autopsy report.

In response, the family took independent steps to uncover the truth. They retained legal counsel, transported Adriana’s body to the United States for a second autopsy, and now rely on a team of private international investigators to re-examine the case from all angles.

Adriana Younge was reported missing during a family trip to Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, and her body was discovered on April 24, 2025, in the swimming pool of the Double Day International Hotel—just 20 hours after she disappeared. A post-mortem examination was performed on April 28 by the team of international experts who concluded that the cause of death was drowning.

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• Adriana Younge, autopsy, Dr. Dexter Todd, Private international investigative

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