The employee of the landscaping company who found the skull
was fired yesterday. She told the police that she had informed her employer
after bullet casings and the lower jaw were discovered at the H Resort in Bel
Ombre.
The police have recovered three bullet casings from the
construction site of H Resort in Bel Ombre, a senior police official confirmed
to this newspaper yesterday. The bullet casings, which are essential for the
identification of the firearm used in the killing of the person whose skull was
found last week, were in fact recovered on Saturday but that information was
not relayed to the press.
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| Patricia Duval was the one who found the skull . |
Sources have also told this newspaper that the Assistant
Commissioner of Police (ACP) for Policing, Reginald Elizabeth, left the country
early yesterday morning for an undisclosed destination. The trip is apparently connected
to the inquiry that was initiated after the recovery of the skull and the
bullet casings.
It has also emerged that the skull was initially found two
weeks ago, well before the discovery of the lower jaw and the bullet casings. The
person who made the initial discovery, 50 year-old Patricia Duval who was employed
by the company responsible for landscaping works at the H Resort, Green Scapes
Ltd, was interrogated by the police on Monday on the construction site.
On the same day, just after Ms Duval concluded her statement
to the police, she was fired by Green Scapes. In a clumsily worded dismissal
letter, Patricia Duval was told that she was being fired because the company had
found that she had “great problems with your attitude, gossiping,
un-confidential, untrustable, always mangle in not concern matters (sic)”.
It was found that her “lack of responsibility does not give
a good picture to the company”. Annabelle Farabeau, the company’s HR manager,
denied that the dismissal had anything to do with Ms Duval’s disclosure of the
recovery of the skull. She did add however that Ms Duval “took photos of the
hotel and this shows a lack of confidentiality”.
Patricia Duval maintains, for her part, that the company is
so embarrassed by not having reported the matter to the police that it is
looking to scapegoat the employees who helped make the matter public. Mrs
Farabeau denies these allegations, adding that it’s not true to say that the
onsite supervisor had ordered the workers to bury the skull.
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| One of the bullet casings next to the lower jaw |
Patricia Duval, who has been given seven days’ notice, says
she will take the matter up with the Employment Tribunal. Meanwhile she is
seeking a meeting with the Commissioner of Police. Speaking to TODAY, she said that
at first when they found the skull, “we didn’t take it seriously. It is only
when we found the jaw and the bullet casings that we realised things were
serious and we reported the matter to the management of Green Scapes”, she
said. Ms Duval was also the person who “gave a burial” to the skull.
The lower jaw and the bullet casings, she says, weren’t
reburied. “We just left it there and continued with our work”, she confirmed.
This is being categorically denied by Green Scapes. “Management was not aware
of this; we only found out on Saturday”, Mrs Farabeau said.
Meanwhile, the police have its work cut out for them as
procedures for DNA testing are set to begin. These tests cannot be performed locally
as Seychelles does not have the facilities but ACP Elizabeth confirmed that
determining whether the skull belonged to a man or a woman, as well as it age
at the time of death, will be done locally. The police would not confirm
whether these procedures have started.
SOURCE:Today
