Man charged with murder of toddler on Cayman Brac

(CNS): Devon Emmanuel Wright Jr (33), who currently lives in Bodden Town, has been charged with the abduction and murder of two-year-old Alissady Powell, whose body was found on the ironshore in Cayman Brac in 2022. Wright is currently in police custody and is due to appear in Summary Court on Thursday morning. Wright was arrested in December last year after a long and controversial investigation.

The child was reported missing on the morning of 26 July 2022, and her body was found several hours later. Police initially treated the case as an unexplained death after an early post-mortem suggested the child had drowned. But the toddler’s mother, who was convinced the child had been murdered, hired a private investigator whose work assisted in changing the case to a murder inquiry.

In December, the police arrested Wright as well as the child’s mother and another woman on the basis that they were the last people with the child when she was alive, and confirmed that Alissady had been suffocated or strangled.

Wright is the only person to have been formally charged with abducting and murdering the little girl. The RCIPS will be holding a press briefing on Thursday, when more details are expected to be revealed about how the three-year-old case has progressed.