Trio arrested over toddler’s death last to see her alive

(CNS): The inquiry into the death of Alissady Powell moved from an unexplained death to a murder investigation only very recently after the work of several forensic experts found that the child was dead before she entered the sea, police have said. The three suspects arrested Wednesday for murder were the last people with the two-year-old toddler before she died in what has now been confirmed as the early hours of 26 July 2022 on Cayman Brac. However, the police have not revealed a motive for the killing.

While CNS understands that the mother of the little girl,  Yvane Dixon-Powell, is one of the three people arrested yesterday on suspicion of murder, the police have refused to confirm or deny any family relationships the trio might have with the child. However, they have said that all three individuals were in the apartment where Alissady was before her death, indicating their connections to the child. All three have been arrested on suspicion of murder based on the fact that they were the last people to see her alive, the police have said.

Dixon-Powell had told police from the outset she didn’t believe her daughter’s death was an accident and pressed for them to treat the case as foul play. Almost a year after Alissady’s death, disappointed by the lack of answers, she hired a private forensic investigator, and it is believed his findings caused the police to begin seeking out other experts and widening the inquiry — which raises questions about her arrest and involvement.

At a press conference about the arrests on Thursday, Police Commissioner Kurt Walton said that no expense has been spared when it comes to seeking justice for Alissady. The complex and protracted investigation was largely due to the time it has taken to find the most experienced, qualified medical and forensic experts to conduct the necessary work and find a consensus over the cause of death, which officers now believe was strangulation or suffocation.

“We accept two years comes across as a very long time; however, given the case’s significance and complexity, as a police service, we owe it to Alissady to conduct a thorough and meticulous investigation in the pursuit of justice into her death,” the commissioner said. “In doing so, this case has required engagement with numerous overseas medical professionals and subject matter experts. This expertise included a paediatric forensic pathologist, neuropathologist, professor of paediatric radiology, cardiac pathologist and other experts specialised in child deaths.”

Walton told the media that the arrests were a significant breakthrough with the continuing investigation as detectives now piece together what happened to the little girl.

Detective Superintendent Peter Lansdown explained how the switch from an open investigation of an unexplained death to a murder inquiry came about. He said experts have now found that the child died as a result of suffocation or strangulation and not drowning, as had been the medical opinion offered following the first post-mortem.

However, the RCIPS also clarified that the cause of death is a decision for the coroner. As discussed during the press briefing, pathologist Dr Lockyer, who has worked with the RCIPS throughout this year, provided an opinion that informed the direction of the investigation.

“Ultimately, the pathology shows that the child was dead before she entered the water,” Lansdown said. “There were three people at Alissady’s home at the time this happened, and that has resulted in the arrest of those three individuals.”

The police have denied that the original post-mortem finding that the little girl had drowned delayed the investigation. They pointed to the number of experts and the time it took for their professional forensic investigations to conclude as the reason for the nearly two-and-a-half-year-long probe. But now that the cause of death has been found to be deliberate, once police have established what happened, the next step will be to establish the evidence to charge the killer or killers and to pass a file on to the director of public prosecution.

Refusing to speculate about what they believe might have happened or the motive for what they now say is a murder, the RCIPS senior officers explained that at this stage, all three of the individuals were arrested on suspicion of three different offences, including child neglect and accessory after the fact as well as murder.

This is the state of affairs until the investigation establishes what happened on that fateful morning that led to the murder and the toddler’s body ending up in the sea and washing up on the shore more than a mile from her home, Lansdown said.

Chief Inspector Malcolm Kaye, who heads up the police in the Sister Islands, has had oversight of this investigation. He explained how it started as a missing child report. It moved on to a suspected water-related death when her body was found later that morning by an off-duty fire officer on the ironshore along South Side East in Cayman Brac. It then became an unexplained death, but in recent weeks, the investigation has developed into a homicide investigation due to the finished reports from the various experts.

Speaking about the arrests, Walton said it went some way to providing answers to the family members and the community, especially in Cayman Brac, which has been deeply affected.

“Since becoming commissioner, each time I have visited the Brac, this case is raised with me,” he said. “People want answers, and rightly so. I said then and will repeat now, that we are committed to exploring every avenue of this case, and that means that no expense will be spared in investigating the death of this child,” Walton added.

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