RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Rus­sell Be­dasse, the po­lice of­fi­cer who pledged to spend the rest of his life in­ves­ti­gat­ing the sus­pi­cious death of his moth­er, Shelawai­htie “Meera” Be­dasse, was found hang­ing in a room of his Coro­man­del Vil­lage, Ce­dros home yes­ter­day.

Shelawai­htie, 57, had been found hang­ing from a tree at Clifton Hill beach on Re­pub­lic Day. Be­dasse was con­vinced she was mur­dered—her body staged to ap­pear as a sui­cide.

Up to press time, the fam­i­ly’s home re­mained cor­doned off as po­lice con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Be­dasse’s un­time­ly death.

A rel­a­tive who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said of­fi­cers kept the fam­i­ly at a dis­tance while they processed the crime scene.

He said Be­dasse had re­signed from the TTPS and had iso­lat­ed him­self from the fam­i­ly as he fo­cused on his moth­er’s case.

Al­though her death had been ruled a sui­cide, Be­dasse al­ways be­lieved she had been mur­dered.

He had turned against un­cles and oth­er rel­a­tives, caus­ing some to spec­u­late that the death was linked to spiri­tis­tic de­vel­op­ments.

Rel­a­tives said Be­dasse was con­vinced that a man con­nect­ed to the po­lice was in­volved in his moth­er’s death.

Tox­i­col­o­gy sam­ples were tak­en and in­ves­ti­ga­tors told the fam­i­ly foul play was not ruled out in Shelawai­htie’s death.

In his fi­nal in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Sep­tem­ber 25, Be­dasse in­sist­ed his moth­er was not sui­ci­dal and crit­i­cised se­nior of­fi­cers for fail­ing to search for her when he first re­port­ed her miss­ing on Sep­tem­ber 23.

South West­ern Di­vi­sion Com­man­der Snr Supt Thomp­son had said sui­cide was the ini­tial find­ing, but that all pos­si­bil­i­ties would be ex­am­ined.

Be­dasse al­so ques­tioned sev­er­al as­pects of the case: his moth­er’s long-stand­ing fear of beach­es af­ter a near-drown­ing, a skin con­di­tion that wors­ened with sea spray, CCTV footage show­ing her en­ter­ing a car “with fear,” and the height and tight­ness of the rope used. He said these de­tails did not sug­gest sui­cide.

Be­dasse re­signed from the Po­lice Ser­vice, say­ing he could not work in a sys­tem he be­lieved had failed his fam­i­ly.

At that time, Min­is­ter of Home­land Af­fairs Roger Alexan­der said he was will­ing to meet with Be­dasse and that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­go­ing. Rel­a­tives, how­ev­er, said the meet­ing nev­er oc­curred.

Now that Be­dasse is dead, the fam­i­ly is urg­ing po­lice to find an­swers in both cas­es.