The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net 

THE sister of the woman whose body was found washed ashore on a beach in Eleuthera over the weekend said she believed her sister was raped, beaten and drowned.

According to police, on Saturday officers were called to a scene in Lower Bogue, Eleuthera, where a woman’s body was found washed up on the shoreline.

Police said they suspect foul play was involved in the incident, in one of two homicides with women victims reported yesterday.

A woman’s body was also found in an abandoned building on Dowdeswell Street around 6am Sunday. Her killing is also being investigated as a homicide.

While officers have not released the Eleuthera victim’s identity, family members say the woman is 25-year-old Keva Cash.

Yesterday, her sister, Eulena Cash, told The Tribune the family is shocked and struggling to come to terms with Keva’s death.

“Her body was located at the beach in Lower Bogue,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t sleep at night, I can’t eat. It just feels like I’m going crazy.”

She added: “Friday night around 7.30pm she was with me, but I left her about five minutes later. I told her I had to go because I have two kids. One of them was supposed to have their birthday party on Saturday and Keva and my next sister was supposed to come. But as soon as I started setting up, I got the call to come down to the community beach because my sister was murdered and that was it. That was the end of it.”

Ms Cash said the last time she spoke to Keva, she told her she wasn’t feeling well because “something wasn’t right”. She said she believed her sister had “felt her death” and sensed that she was going to pass away soon.

“I got information that she was running from someone,” Ms Cash continued. “They said someone was actually chasing her through the settlement and chased her down to the beach.

“Around 7am that Saturday morning, a little boy who normally exercises at the beach every morning saw her on the northern side of the beach. When he saw the body, he ran from the beach straight home to his mother and after he told her, the mother told us. That’s how we found out it was Keva. The boy knows her because he’s from the settlement.”

Ms Cash said she was not there when police retrieved the body. She said one of the other sisters who witnessed the recovery of the body told her Keva only had a bra on when the officers took her out of the water.

“She didn’t have on no clothes,” she said. “She didn’t have on her (underwear) and she didn’t have on the blue dress she had on that night I saw her. The only thing she had on was a sports bra. They couldn’t tell if she was badly beaten because she spent the night in the water and her body was swollen, but they said her face didn’t look like her face anymore.”

Ms Cash said as far as the family knows, officers on the island had a man in custody in connection with the incident. She said police told them they are just trying to follow up on information regarding Keva’s last whereabouts and the last people who saw her before she was killed.

“From my understanding, the man (in police custody) is from Lower Bogue, but he spent most of his life in Nassau. I understand he got himself in some problems in Nassau and he had to run back home…and now this happened,” Ms Cash said.

However, police did not report that they had a man in custody in connection with the case.

Ms Cash said while her sister was “slow in certain ways,” she “knew who people were”.

“Keva is not like a regular person. She has an adult body with a mind of a two or three-year-old, but she is a person who knows who people are. If you do her something, she will call your name. The problem is her speaking is different. She can’t pronounce words properly,” Ms Cash said.

“She went through a lot because she couldn’t speak properly and a lot of people teased her so she used to be down and out.”

Yet, Ms Cash said despite the negativity, Keva had a “happy spirit”.

“She loved to dance and sing, but most of all she just loved being around us. Keva was a person if she saw you were down, she couldn’t just sit around and watch you in a bad situation.

“She was one of the happiest spirits out of all of my mother’s children.”

In a separate incident, police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of another woman whose body was discovered early Sunday morning.

“Preliminary reports indicate that sometime around 6am on Sunday officers from the Operation Unit were on routine patrol, when they were directed to an abandoned building situated on Dowdeswell Street,” a police report read.

“On their arrival, the officers smelt a foul odour, as a result a search of the building was conducted. The officers discovered the partially decomposed body of a female in a generator room. Foul play is suspected in this matter and investigation continues.”

The identity of the woman in this incident is not known.

Police reported another murder last night - after a man was shot in his head in Nassau Village - pushing the country’s murder count to 50 for the year, according to this newspaper’s records.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Criminal Investigation Department at 502-9991/2, Crime stoppers at 328-TIPS (8477) or the nearest police station.