Slain girl’s mom waits to bury her

Thomas, 17, was found with her hands bound behind her back and a single bullet wound to the back of the head in bushes near her home at Calvary Trace, Arima shortly after 11 am Friday.

Her ex-boyfriend (and not boyfriend as had been previously reported) Carlyle Hamilton, 33, was hours earlier shot and critically wounded a few metres from where her body was found.

Thomas had converted to Islam just over a year ago around the same time when she met Hamilton.

Cipriani said she was coping at this time and she just wanted to lay her daughter to rest. She was still awaiting the return of her other daughter Elizabeth, 10, who lives with her father. The mother said that brothers from the mosque have been assisting her in trying to get her child to be laid to rest, hopefully on Monday after the Forensics autopsy was done.

The mother said, despite media reports, Thomas and Hamilton were never married but were romantically involved in the past.

Cipriani said she had no problem with her daughter seeing a much older man because he never showed her any disrespect.

She described her daughter as a level-headed teenager who made right decisions for herself because she wanted to reach forward in her life.

She said Hamilton was not from the area and had not been there in a while.

Investigations are continuing.