Confession changes case

THE MURDER and buggery case of New Grant schoolboy Dane Andrews took a major twist yesterday when police investigators said new information revealed Andrews’ death was accidental and not murder, as was first suspected.

Although they admitted the 12-year-old schoolboy had indeed been buggered, they now believe the act took place elsewhere and he was not murdered to cover up the sex crime. As a result, the file on Andrews will be closed, a police officer said yesterday.

Andrews’body was found floating in a pond near his home at Monkey Town Branch Trace, Hindustan on February 1. An autopsy revealed his death was due to drowning, but that he was also sexually assaulted.

A nationwide search was launched for his alleged killer. Police had fingered a key suspect in the investigation, but he was not interviewed by them. Newsday learnt the one-time suspect, has left the village since the schoolboy’s death. The deceased’s grandmother Buelah Andrews, said she believed the perpetrator was a resident from an adjoining village.

She also believes the police were given misleading information by a “Judas”, so as to end the investigations.

However, after six weeks of investigation by Homicide Bureau detectives, a young boy who was an eyewitness to Andrews’drowning, finally confessed to police yesterdsay saying the incident was purely accidental and Andrews slipped into the water and was not pushed or thrown in.

Police said the new information also revealed that Andrews was not buggered at the scene of his death. The eyewitness said he witheld the information out of fear of being jailed.

“We are satisfied that he died by drowning and that the sexual assault took place somewhere else,” a senior police source said. The source added that the investigations into the buggery would continue.

According to a police source, the eyewitness, speaking to police in the company of his mother, denied there was an adult male at the scene when he and Andrews went to the pond to swim.

Andrews went to the pond on the evening of February 1, 2006, with a classmate from the Hindustan Government Primary School. He left his schoolbag and clothing at the friend’s house.