Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Days af­ter the bat­tered body of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne was dis­cov­ered in Erin, a 26-year-old Pa­lo Seco man is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court to­day.

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors yes­ter­day re­ceived in­struc­tions from Spe­cial Ad­vis­er Joan Hon­ore-Paul to charge Richard Re­nalis with the child’s mur­der.

He was ar­rest­ed by po­lice hours af­ter the child’s body was dis­cov­ered on Sun­day. On Tues­day, of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion Three re­turned to the sus­pect’s home and oth­er key ar­eas re­lat­ed to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

In a Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­lease yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro stat­ed, “The en­tire Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice stands with Mer­cedes’ fam­i­ly and with every par­ent, guardian and com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber who is hurt­ing to­day. The loss of this child through this heinous crime is a wound to the na­tion’s soul. No child in this coun­try should ever have their fu­ture stolen by vi­o­lence, and no fam­i­ly should ever have to car­ry this kind of pain.”

“As Com­mis­sion­er, I want our cit­i­zens to know that we ap­proached this in­ves­ti­ga­tion with em­pa­thy, ur­gency and an un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to jus­tice. Our chil­dren de­serve to grow up safe, pro­tect­ed and sur­round­ed by a so­ci­ety that val­ues their in­no­cence. The TTPS will con­tin­ue to do every­thing in our pow­er to shield them from harm and to hold ac­count­able any­one who threat­ens their safe­ty.”

Mer­cedez, a Stan­dard Four stu­dent at St Fran­cis Erin RC School, was re­port­ed miss­ing by a rel­a­tive whom she con­sid­ered her grand­fa­ther around 4 pm on Sat­ur­day.

He told po­lice that around 11.30 am, he placed her in­to a PH taxi and asked the male dri­ver, whom he did not know, to drop her home, which was less than five min­utes away. She nev­er made it to her Los Iros Beach Road home, where she lived with her moth­er and sib­lings.

Po­lice, vil­lagers and the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team launched search op­er­a­tions, which end­ed the fol­low­ing day short­ly be­fore 7 am when an oil com­pa­ny work­er found her body near Well ER-46, lo­cat­ed about 500 feet along a dirt road off Cara­pal Road.

She was ly­ing face down, clad in a jer­sey. Among the items found near­by were a plas­tic bag con­tain­ing packs of ra­men noo­dles, a cir­cu­lar piece of wood and a bro­ken beer bot­tle.

An au­top­sy lat­er con­firmed that she had been beat­en to death.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was led by Supt Per­sad and ASP Maraj of the Re­gion Three Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, while the charg­ing of­fi­cer is Woman Cpl Dy­er-Bap­tiste.

Re­nalis is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly be­fore a High Court Mas­ter to­day.

Mean­while, the school com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to grieve her loss. In a Face­book post on Tues­day, the school ex­pressed sad­ness over the death of “a beloved stu­dent.”

“Words can­not be­gin to ex­press the depth of grief felt by the St Fran­cis Erin RC School fam­i­ly and the wider com­mu­ni­ty at this trag­ic loss.

“A gra­cious stu­dent who en­tered our doors at In­fant One, she read­i­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in every school ac­tiv­i­ty and stood qui­et­ly, yet, coura­geous­ly in sup­port of her friends. Her ra­di­ant smile, though of­ten hid­ing her shy­ness, was a source of en­cour­age­ment and joy to all who knew her.

“Mer­cedez was a bless­ing in our midst.”

Adding that she will for­ev­er be trea­sured with­in the school and com­mu­ni­ty, the school ex­pressed its heart­felt con­do­lences to her loved ones.

The be­reaved fam­i­ly has not yet fi­nalised a date for her fu­ner­al.