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NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – Police Commissioner, Clayton Fernander, says the main suspect in the brutal murder of a 12-year-old school girl remains under “heavy guard” in hospital after being injured during a fight with arresting officers.
Police said that Adriel Moxey, a seventh-grade student at Anatol Rodgers High School, was found dead in bushes last Wednesday, a day after she was reported missing.
They said she was wearing only a shirt, with a cloth tied around her neck.
Fernander told a news conference that the child had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
He told reporters she was not wearing a uniform, and police were still trying to locate her school belongings.
The top cop said that the main suspect, a 32-year-old man is a known patient of Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre which provides psychiatric, geriatric and substance abuse services.
He said the suspect is now a patient at the Princess Margaret Hospital and will be taken to Sandilands for evaluation upon his release.
“Officers are watching there like 24 hours. We know that we are unable to speak to him. At this time, the doctor is saying that we are unable to speak to him because of his (mental) condition.”
“We will wait for the doctor to indicate to us when it’s a good time, or if the investigators are able to speak with him if he’s in sound mind to really answer questions put together. So that’s why the DNA evidence is so crucial in that matter, and we are moving quickly to do just that,” Fernander said, adding that the police are preparing DNA evidence from the victim and the suspect for testing overseas.
Last week, Pastor Cleveland Wells, the founding pastor of Restoration Kingdom Ministries and Adriel’s pastor, said police never met him at the scene after he reported the screams to the Carmichael Police Station.
Fernander said the report was checked “but if you visit that scene that night, man, you can hardly see your hand in front of you”.
He said by the time the police had arrived at the place, the pastor had already left.
But the Commissioner said investigators believe they are on the right track in their investigations based on the intelligence accumulated.
“We feel that we are on the right track, and we just want to dot the I’s and cross the T’s, and we will continue to. We are not just leaving it as is. We continue to follow other lines of inquiry just to ensure, and as I indicated, we suspect based on the information that we retrieve, we believe that we may be on the right track, and we are moving quickly, either to exonerate him or put him before the court.”
Media reports said that Adriel’s death has reignited concerns about the safety of children after school hours.
Last year, 28 bus drivers partnered with the Ministry of Education to launch a public school bus programme, allowing students to use the public bus system on campus.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Dr Chaswell Hanna, responsible for school safety, said the initiative is ongoing and will be strengthened to ensure students can travel directly from school to their neighbourhoods.
Commissioner Fernander called on Bahamians to be their brother’s keeper and urged the Bahamas Christian Council to host a monthly national day of prayer.
