While many are enjoying time with family, exchanging gifts and relishing traditional Trini Christmas delicacies today, Candice Riley says for the first time in 18 years there is no Christmas for her or her family this year.
Exactly three weeks after the body of her daughter, Ashanti Riley, was found in a river off Upper La Canoa Road, Santa Cruz, Riley told the Express yesterday her family is still finding it hard to come to terms with their loss.
The grieving mother said: âItâs hard on everybody. Weâre not having a Christmas. Christmas is out the door. Itâs really, really hard. Even though we went through the process of identifying the body, autopsy, burying her, itâs still not real to me. Itâs still like sheâll come home some time.â
It was unintentional and the Prime Minister is sorry.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday apologised after receiving a tongue lashing over the insensitivity of a Facebook post expressing grief over the murder of Ashanti Riley and in the same breath lambasting the âimpsâ who are pushing a narrative that Trinidad authorities turned back a boatload of Venezuelans who drowned.
Both incidents were deemed to be âdouble doses of griefâ.
The post on the Office of the Prime Minister Facebook page yesterday was deleted after a flood of comments criticising its language and insensitivity.
An edited split version was then posted on Rowleyâs personal Facebook page.
Murder, rape charges for San Juan man
Luciano Quash - Courtesy the TTPS
ON the same day she was buried, a San Juan man appeared virtually in court, charged with the murder of 18-year-old Ashanti Riley.
Luciano Quash appeared before magistrate Indar Jagroo just after 1 pm on Monday, more than a week after Riley’s body was found in a forested area in La Canoa, Santa Cruz.
The charge read out to Quash, 33, also known as Brian, a PH taxi driver of Bagatelle Road, was that on a day unknown, during the period Saturday, November 28 and Saturday, December 5, at Upper La Canoa Road, lower Santa Cruz, together with other persons, he murdered Riley, contrary to common law.
Quash, of Laventille, is expected to virtually appear before a Port of Spain magistrate today.
Another man who had been detained with him has since been released pending further enquiry.
Police said yesterday the charges against Quash include that on a day unknown between November 29 and December 5 at Upper La Canoa Road, Santa Cruz, together with other persons he murdered Ashanti Riley.
Quash is also charged with assaulting a 16-year-old girl on March 14 this year at Bagatelle, San Juan.
Ashanti was reported missing on November 29. On December 4 her battered, partially decomposed body was found in a river off Upper La Canoa Road, Santa Cruz.
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