Missing Pixie found dead

“ALL I see is a bag of bones. Why did my daughter have to be in a bag of bones?” cried the father of 16-year-old Radha Pixie Lakhan. Yesterday, exactly a month after she went missing, after getting out of a bus from the Palo Seco Government Secondary School, Lakhan’s skeletal remains were found in a forested area near her home at Spring Trace, Quarry Village, Siparia. The gruesome discovery was made yesterday around 3 pm, after a 25-year-old man, who was recently charged with murdering another woman in the area, led a party of police officers to a forested area off Spring Trace. Pixie Lakhan lived at Spring Trace.

Lakhan’s body was found less than a quarter-mile from her home, in the same area where she went missing while returning home from school on Tuesday March 22. Police believe Lakhan was grabbed by the suspect, dragged into the bushes and raped. She was then killed and left in the bushes. When the skeletal remains were found yesterday, scores of villagers lined both sides of the road to catch a glimpse of her body. Around 3 pm yesterday, after the man led police to the forested area, he allegedly pointed out where he had left Lakhan’s body — 300 feet off Spring Trace under a bamboo patch.

When police viewed the remains of the teen, her uniform was visible. Lakhan’s blue and white school bag, packed with all her books, was found near her body. Pixie Lakhan, was a Form Five student. Scores of villagers and relatives, who lined the streets as word spread that the girl’s body was found, screamed and wailed at the scene when undertakers brought out the remains in a white bag. Her ailing father, Rampersad, identified Lakhan’s body by  her school bag. “People say my child bad and she run away with a man. Look at the torture and punishment my child gone through,” sobbed Rampersad.

The trembling father of three, who had to be supported by relatives, said he went to the area where his daughter’s body was found last Friday to cut a piece of sugarcane for a prayer service for his missing daughter. He had no clue that her remains were lying there. “I did not see her. If I knew where she was, I would have found her long time,” he cried. Lakhan’s sister, Sumatie, sobbed: “We waiting a month for you to come home, and this is what we get.” Dexter Ramphan, a close friend of the girl’s family, said that “up until the end,” the family was hopeful that she was still alive. He expressed shock that Lakhan’s body was found in the same area where he, villagers, police and tracking dogs, had searched for her.

The 25-year-old man has reportedly given police a statement confessing to the teenager’s murder. Police are awaiting the results of an autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre on Monday, before charging the suspect with Pixie Lakhan’s murder. Four days ago, the battered body of Lakhan’s great-aunt, Tarmattee Toolsie, was found in a forested area at La Brea Trace, Siparia. Yesterday, it was revealed that Pixie Lakhan’s body was found less than quarter of a mile from where Toolsie’s body was discovered. Toolsie, a janitor who went missing last Friday, was raped and then strangled. A 25-year-old man, also of La Brea Trace, was charged with her murder. Conducting the search for Pixie Lakhan yesterday was a party of officers led by Snr Supt Felix Nimrod, and including Insp Well and Cpl Minors of the Siparia Police Station.